In 1871, the Texas Legislature passes a bill to establish TAMC. Classes, however, didn't start until the fall of 1876.

A&M puts "1876" on its seal, and the A&M system website lists 1876 as the establishment year here: http://www.tamus.edu/univ/tamu.html

Wikipedia has an article on Date of establishment. The article states a university may define (for our purposes) its date of establishment by:

* The date at which the papers of its incorporation was approved
* The date on which it first opened for the teaching of classes

So is it incorrect to say A&M was established in 1871, if A&M seems to point to 1876 as the year?

Let's not be teasips. They like to claim they are the older school because the Legislature passed some resolution calling for a University of Texas back in 10,000 B.C. or something.

October 4, 1876 40 students and 6 faculty members began instruction at the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas.

Yea definitely go with the 1876. That's when classes started.

IMO 1871 was just when the legislature gave the go ahead for TAMC to be created. It took five more years for the dream to be realized.

The university claims 1876, so let's stick with it. My roommate in college had an old sweater that was his mom's when she came here and it said 1871 on it. He loved to wear it because of that.

When was tu's date of est.? 1836?

1836 is certainly out of the question as Baylor is the only university chartered by the Republic in 1845. Because of that, they still include the Republic of Texas on their seal



Wikipedia says 1883 for t.u.

Pro Sandy, Baylor ceased to exist for several years (the old campus at Independence is now a ruin). They re-established themselves under a new charter, so it's not accurate to say that it's the same Baylor University.

The oldest university operating under its original charter is Austin College in Sherman.

ghlc93, t.u. was not established during the Republic. Lamar in 1838 pushed for a university to be established, but it was not named and even when they did decide to name it, that didn't mean it was going to be the "t.u." we know today.

More to the point, when were communists, hippies and homosexuals allowed into Texas? That was the year "U.T." was established.

Hell aalan the Baylor of 2008, isn't the Baylor of twenty years ago and physically they haven't moved .