The Ohio State University was established by the Ohio legislature in 1870 and taught its first classes in 1873. Its main campus is in Columbus, and its About page cites a land-grant mission and six campuses across Ohio, including regional campuses at Lima, Mansfield, Marion and Newark and the CFAES Wooster campus. Walter “Ted” Carter Jr. is President.
The university’s Statistical Summary for 2025-2026 lists 15 colleges, 61,326 students on the Columbus campus and 67,255 across the university, of whom 52,553 are undergraduates. It reports 2,954 tenure-track faculty by headcount, total revenues of $11.5 billion in its fiscal 2025 plan, an endowment valued at $8.6 billion at 30 June 2025 and research expenditure of $1.58 billion in fiscal 2024.