This article is about the institution of higher learning in the United States. For other uses, see Yale (disambiguation).

Yale University is a private university in New Haven, Connecticut. Founded in 1701, Yale is the third-oldest American institution of higher education (or fourth, if St. John's College, Annapolis is included) and one of the most prestigious and well-known in the world. The University has graduated numerous Nobel Prize laureates and U.S. Presidents, including William Clinton and George W. Bush. Its $12.7 billion academic endowment is the second largest worldwide (behind only its larger rival, Harvard University).

Yale is one of the eight members of the Ivy League. The rivalry between Yale and Harvard is long and storied, by far the oldest in the Ivy League; from academics to rowing to college football, their historic competition is similar to that of Oxford and Cambridge.

Yale's emphasis on undergraduate teaching is unusual among its peer research universities, and its undergraduates live in a unique residential college system. Yale College has produced more Rhodes Scholars than any undergraduate institution save Harvard. Yale's graduate schools include strong drama and arts programs and the most selective law school in the United States. The University has over 3,000 faculty members, with Sterling Professors considered the highest rank.