Stanford University

Leland and Jane Stanford founded the university in memory of their only child, Leland Stanford Jr., who died of typhoid fever at fifteen in 1884.⁠[2]

The founding grant was executed on November 11, 1885.⁠[3]

Its legal name is Leland Stanford Junior University.⁠[4]

The university opened on October 1, 1891, as a coeducational, non-denominational institution.⁠[2]

Its first year enrolled 555 students.⁠[3]

After Leland Stanford’s death, probate froze estate assets and interrupted university income during a national depression. Jane Stanford kept the institution open, directing most of her court-approved $10,000 monthly allowance to President David Starr Jordan for university expenses and salaries.⁠[5]

The San Francisco earthquake extensively damaged the campus.⁠[3]

Cooper Medical College transferred its San Francisco properties and equipment to Stanford and became the university’s medical department. Clinical teaching and some basic-science courses remained in San Francisco, while other basic sciences were taught on campus.⁠[6]

Following Herbert Hoover’s advocacy, Stanford Graduate School of Business opened with Willard Hotchkiss as its first dean and an initial cohort of 16 students. Early studies included accounting, economic analysis, marketing, management and the geographical and psychological dimensions of business.⁠[7]

The first MBAs were awarded in 1927. Gertrude Elisabeth Benedict and Helen Elizabeth Carpenter became its first women MBA graduates in 1930; Andrew Howard III, Rose Martin and Helen Martin became its first African American graduates in 1953.⁠[7]

William Hewlett and David Packard developed their audio-oscillator work into HP. Stanford Research Park followed in 1951, with Varian Associates among its first tenants.⁠[4]

The medical school, clinics and Palo Alto-Stanford Hospital formed the on-campus Stanford University Medical Center in 1959. The university and the city jointly financed the hospital to serve teaching, research and local patient care.⁠[6]

In 1968, Stanford acquired Palo Alto’s entire interest in the hospital and renamed it Stanford University Hospital.⁠[8]

Stanford and the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission signed the initial contract for the linear accelerator. Construction began that July, was completed on February 10, 1966, and was formally dedicated on September 9, 1967.⁠[9]

John McCarthy and Les Earnest founded the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.⁠[4]

SLAC obtained early experimental evidence for quarks in 1968 and discovered the psi particle in 1974. Burton Richter shared the 1976 Nobel Prize for work on the J/psi; Richard Taylor shared the 1990 prize for evidence of quark structure within nucleons.⁠[10]

Stanford established the Office of Technology Licensing to evaluate, market and license university-owned technologies. Faculty, staff and students submit invention disclosures; the office assesses commercial potential and negotiates licenses with industry.⁠[11]

Royalties from successful licenses support inventors’ departments and schools and include personal shares for the inventors.⁠[11]

Stanford biochemist Paul Berg produced an early recombinant DNA molecule in 1972. Stanford’s Stanley Cohen and UCSF’s Herbert Boyer developed related technology, filed for a patent in 1974 and received it in 1980.⁠[12]

Berg and other researchers urged a pause in most such experiments until safety was better understood. The debate helped lead to the 1975 Asilomar conference and subsequent NIH guidelines. Berg received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1980.⁠[12]

SLAC physicist Paul Kunz installed the first Web server outside Europe at the laboratory. Its first pages went online between December 6 and 12, 1991, becoming North America’s earliest websites.⁠[13]

In 2014, Stanford Libraries restored these early pages in its web archive, making them browsable again as part of its preservation of early online material.⁠[13]

Graduate students Larry PageLarry PageLarry Page is a computer scientist and co-founder of Google who helped develop PageRank. He previously served as chief executive of Google and Alphabet and remains an Alphabet director.Open the full entry and Sergey Brin developed PageRank and founded GoogleGoogleGoogle is an American technology company founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin and incorporated in 1998. It became an Alphabet subsidiary in 2015. Its businesses include internet search, advertising, software platforms, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence.Open the full entry in 1998.⁠[4]

SLAC’s Linac Coherent Light Source achieved first light in 2009. Its LCLS-II upgrade followed in 2023, extending the laboratory’s development of X-ray light sources.⁠[10]

Stanford launched the Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, or HAI, co-directed by computer science professor Fei-Fei Li and philosophy professor and former provost John Etchemendy.⁠[14]

The institute combined AI research, education, policy and practice, bringing together humanities, social sciences, engineering, medicine and law to study AI’s effects on people and its applications.⁠[14]

The Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability opened on September 1, 2022, becoming one of the university’s seven schools and bringing together research and education on environment, energy and sustainability.⁠[3][1]

A university historical investigation confirmed efforts to suppress Jewish admissions in the 1950s and subsequent denials of discrimination. President Marc Tessier-Lavigne apologized on Stanford’s behalf for both the practices and the later denials.⁠[15]

Evidence included a 1953 internal memorandum and sharp enrollment declines from two Southern California high schools with substantial Jewish populations. The investigation did not establish the full duration or reach of the practices.⁠[15]

Marc Tessier-Lavigne resigned as president effective August 31, 2023, following a review of research papers. The review found no evidence of his personal research misconduct or prior knowledge of others’ misconduct, but identified improper data manipulation or deficient practices in some laboratories he oversaw and inadequate correction of some problems.⁠[16]

Richard Saller became interim president on September 1; Tessier-Lavigne retained his tenured biology professorship.⁠[16]

Jenny Martinez became provost, the chief academic and budgetary officer, in October 2023. Jonathan Levin became the thirteenth president in August 2024.⁠[17]

Stanford and the University of California, Berkeley became full members of the Atlantic Coast Conference. Stanford’s move followed its long membership in the Pac-12 and predecessor conferences, changing its intercollegiate competition schedule and conference relationships.⁠[18]

For the fiscal year ending August 31, 2025, externally sponsored research support totaled $2.3 billion, including SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, across more than 7,500 sponsored awards.⁠[19]

For 2025–26, Stanford’s consolidated operating budget was $10.3 billion, including schools, administrative units and SLAC. It excluded a $0.4 billion capital budget and the budgets of Stanford Health Care and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital.⁠[20]

The endowment stood at $40.8 billion on August 31, 2025, and distributed $1.9 billion during fiscal 2025. Approximately 75% of its payout was restricted to designated purposes.⁠[20]

Stanford reported 7,289 undergraduates and 10,025 graduate students for autumn 2025. Its facts publication listed 2,402 faculty members, 8,353 acres of campus land and 630 buildings.⁠[21]

Stanford provides need-based undergraduate aid. For families with typical assets, parents earning below $150,000 pay no tuition; parents earning below $100,000 also pay no housing or food costs.⁠[22]

Aid primarily takes the form of scholarships that need not be repaid, supplemented by government grants, outside scholarships and student employment. Stanford states that it does not expect students to borrow to meet assessed need.⁠[22]