First University in The United States - First "research" University in The United States

First "research" University in The United States

The Johns Hopkins University's website states "The Johns Hopkins University is the first research university in the United States." The distinctively American model of the research university came into being in the 19th century when the German model of the elite scientific research institute offering specialized graduate training was “grafted” onto the traditional American undergraduate liberal arts college. Following the lead of Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, fifteen American institutions came to define the American research university: some of them private, such as Harvard, Columbia, Cornell, Penn, Princeton, and Yale; others, state and land grant universities, such as the University of Michigan, the University of Wisconsin, the University of Illinois, and the University of California; still others, new universities made possible by private bequests, such as Stanford, Caltech, MIT, and the University of Chicago. These institutions produced the vast majority of US Ph.D.s in the 20th century, so nearly everyone who has attended a college or university in the nation has been taught by faculty who are their graduates.