Yeshiva University is a private Jewish university in New York City whose first component was founded in 1886. The Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, a rabbinical school, is an affiliate of the University.

Separate undergraduate programs for men (Yeshiva College and the Sy Syms School of Business) and women (Stern College for Women and the Sy Syms School of Business) combine traditional liberal arts and sciences studies with extensive Jewish Studies programs. In 2001, undergraduate enrollment was approximately 2,600. The undergraduate programs operate according to the Modern Orthodox philosophy of Torah U'Madda - torah and secular studies.

Coeducational graduate and professional programs are offered in numerous fields including medicine, at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine; law, at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law; psychology, at the Ferkauff Graduate School; Social Work, at the Wurzweiler School of Social Work; Jewish studies at the Bernard Revel Graduate School; and Jewish education at the Azrieli Graduate School of Jewish Education and Administration.

Yeshiva Eitz Chayyim, a cheder-style school was founded on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in 1886. It had little secular studies in its curriculum. It merged with Yeshivas Rabbi Isaac Elchanon (founded in 1897 for high school and undergraduate level Talmudic studies) in 1915. Simultaneously, Bernard (Dov) Revel, Yeshiva's legendary first President, founded the first dual curriculum high school- the Talmudical Academy (now known as The Marsha Stern Talmudical Academy-MSTA), blazing a path to what has become the norm in Orthodox Jewish circles. Yeshiva College was founded in 1928 as an expansion to stem the tide of TA graduates to secular colleges such as New York University (NYU) and City College of New York. Later that year, Yeshiva moved to its current location in Washington Heights. (The alternative location was in Morningside Heights, near the current location of the Jewish Theological Seminary and Columbia University.) Yeshiva attained university status in 1946, under its second President, Rabbi Dr. Samuel Belkin. In 1970, Yeshiva revised its charter to become a secular university, reducing the status of RIETS (Rabbi Isaac Elchanon Theological Seminary) and MSTA to "affiliate", despite vigorous student and faculty protest. In 2002, Yeshiva again broke with tradition by appointing a layman (someone who is not an ordained rabbi), Richard M. Joel, as its fourth president, again over student and faculty protest, which quickly subsided upon his investiture. Yeshiva currently has over a dozen affiliated schools. Rabbi Dr. Norman Lamm, who served as the university's third president, now serves in the dual position of Chancellor of the University and Rosh HaYeshiva (headmaster) of RIETS.