Marshall University is a public university based in Huntington, West Virginia. It was founded in 1837 as Marshall Academy, a private school at what today would be called the high school level, under the control of the Southern Methodist Church. It was renamed Marshall College in 1857 however the majority of its offerings remained below the college level. The church lost control of the college and it became a state institution in 1867. It was renamed Marshall University in 1961, although it had been acredited as a "university level institution" for many decades prior to that.

In 2004 the school had an enrollment of 16,500. In addition to the main campus in Huntington, the school maintains a graduate-level branch campus in South Charleston, West Virginia, and undergraduate centers in Gilbert, West Virginia, Point Pleasant, West Virginia, and Hurricane, West Virginia.

Marshall University also operates the Robert C. Byrd Institute, with operations on both the Huntington and South Charleston campuses, as well as in Fairmont, West Virginia, and Rocket Center, West Virginia. The goal of the Institue is the transfer technology from the academic departments to private industry with the goal of job development.