The University of Michigan traces its origins to 26 August 1817, when it was chartered in Detroit as the Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania, two decades before Michigan attained statehood. The institution relocated to Ann Arbor in 1837, and teaching began there in 1841 with an initial cohort of seven students, the first degrees following in 1845. It remains the oldest higher education institution in the state. Nineteenth-century growth added colleges of dental surgery and pharmacy, opened admission to women from 1870, and produced the first doctorates in 1876; the university was later a founding member of the Association of American Universities.

The university is organized into 19 schools and colleges offering more than 280 degree programs. The College of Literature, Science, and the Arts is the largest academic unit, alongside the College of Engineering, the Ross School of Business, the Medical School, the Law School, the Ford School of Public Policy, the School of Information, the School of Public Health, and the School of Music, Theatre and Dance. The physics department gained international standing in the interwar period, and the first American degree programs in engineering mechanics were established here. The Ann Arbor campus records a headcount of roughly 53,500 students, about 35,400 of them undergraduates and 18,100 postgraduates, taught by some 8,500 faculty.

Carnegie classifies the university as an R1 doctoral institution with very high research activity, and 2021 National Science Foundation data put its annual research spending third highest of any American university. Its endowment stood at $21.2 billion in 2025. In 1948 the Michigan Memorial Phoenix Project launched what was then the first nuclear science and engineering degree program at a university in the country. The campus covers 3,177 acres and is divided into Central, North, North Medical and athletic areas, with the Huron River separating Central from North Campus. Ann Arbor itself is a midsize city in southeastern Michigan.