Yale traces its beginnings to "An Act for Liberty to Erect a Collegiate School" passed by the General Court of the Colony of Connecticut and dated October 9, 1701, which was furthered by a meeting in Branford, Connecticut by a group of ten Congregationalist ministers, now known collectively as the Founders, who pooled their books to form the school's first library. The school first opened in the home of its first rector, Abraham Pierson in Killingworth, Connecticut. In 1716, the school moved to New Haven, Connecticut, where it remains to this day.

The college was originally known as the Collegiate School; it adopted the name Yale after Cotton Mather, a friend of the Collegiate School because of his feuds with Harvard, contacted Elihu Yale for help (at the behest of either Rector Andrew or Governor Saltonstall). Yale bestowed a generous gift of nine bales of goods (which the school sold, netting over £560, a substantial sum of money at the time), 417 books, and a portrait of King George I. Yale expanded gradually, establishing the Yale Medical School (1810), Yale Divinity School (1822), Yale Law School (1843), Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (1847), Yale School of Fine Arts (1869), Yale School of Music (1894), and Yale School of Public Health (1915). In the early 20th century, Yale merged with the Sheffield Scientific School.