<Li> The College of William and Mary's website states, "The College of William and Mary was the first college to become a university (1779)." </Li> <P> Additionally, Johns Hopkins University opened in 1876 and claims to be "America's first research university" (emphasis added). </P> <P> Harvard University calls itself "the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States" and this claim is rarely challenged . It is possible to disagree what year should be taken as Harvard's "real" founding date (Harvard uses the earliest possible one, 1636, when the institution was chartered by the Massachusetts Bay Colony). However, Harvard has operated since 1650 under the same corporation, the "President and Fellows of Harvard College"; it thus has an unbroken institutional history dating back to the mid seventeenth century (an official Harvard web page for the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences claims, "Founded in 1636, Harvard is America's oldest university"). </P> <P> William & Mary calls itself "America's second - oldest college", acknowledging Harvard's claim but adding that William & Mary itself is the nation's oldest college in its "antecedents," the College of Henricopolis or University of Henrico established by the Virginia Company near Richmond, Virginia . This institution received a royal charter in 1618 and operated a school for several years before being destroyed with the town during the Indian Massacre of 1622, but it never offered college - level instruction . The following year, King James I dissolved the Virginia Company, converting the Colony of Virginia to a crown colony . William and Mary was founded under a new charter in 1693 . </P>

Which is the oldest university in the usa