From its beginnings as a private business college nearly a century and a half ago, Rider University has consistently thrived as a home for students seeking a timely, relevant and thorough curriculum and an environment to satisfy their intellectual curiosity.
Founded in 1865 as Trenton Business College, the institution was established to train leaders in the booming, industrialized post-Civil War economy. While Rider still produces some of today’s leading business executives, it has evolved into a mid-size, highly residential comprehensive university with a diverse campus community and vibrant undergraduate and graduate programs in the arts, sciences, music, fine and performing arts, education, counseling and leadership. In summer 2017, the University offered its first doctoral program, the Ed.D. in Educational Leadership.
Gradually growing in size and scope through the first half of the 20th century, Rider began its move to a more spacious, suburban campus in 1959, when the first offices and classes moved to a 280-acre tract of land on Route 206 in Lawrence Township, N.J. Rider merged with Westminster Choir College in 1992, establishing a campus in Princeton, N.J., and achieved university status in 1994. The University is home to four academic units that include the Norm Brodsky College of Business, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, College of Education and Human Services and the Westminster College of the Arts.
