private, coeducational institution of higher learning in St. Louis, Mo., U.S. It is a comprehensive research and academic institution, and it includes one of the leading research-centred medical schools in the United States. In addition, the university includes the school of arts and sciences, the John M. Olin School of Business, the George Warren Brown School of Social Work, the Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts (including colleges of art and architecture), a graduate school, and schools of law and engineering and applied science, which includes Sever Institute of Technology. In addition to undergraduate studies, Washington University offers over 140 graduate and professional degree programs. Research facilities include the McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences and the Central Institute for the Deaf. Campus libraries house some 3.1 million books. Total enrollment is approximately 11,000.

The university was founded in 1853 as Eliot Seminary, became Washington Institute the next year, and in 1857 was renamed Washington University. In 1869 the School of Law was the first chartered law school in the nation to admit women. The state's two oldest medical schools, the St. Louis Medical College and Missouri Medical College, came under the control of Washington University in 1891 and 1899, respectively. The medical campus is separate from the main campus, which Washington University has occupied since 1905. In the course of its history, the university has benefited from associations with some two dozen Nobel Prize recipients. Distinguished writers Howard Nemerov, Mona Van Duyn, and William Gass have held faculty positions at Washington University.