National University of Singapore Degree: From a Small Medical School to a Global University
The National University of Singapore (NUS) is Singapore’s top university for research. It was founded in 1905 as the Straits and Federated Malay States Government Medical School with an intake of only 23 students. Over more than a century, the institution grew through several reorganizations and mergers before taking its current form as the National University of Singapore in 1980.
The story of the university is the story of the broader progress of higher education in Singapore. The original medical school was renamed the King Edward VII Medical School in 1913 and in 1921 became the King Edward VII College of Medicine. Raffles College was established in 1928 to provide higher education in arts and sciences.
The two merged in 1949 to form the University of Malaya. In 1962 the Singapore division was renamed and became the independent University of Singapore. Another important institution, Nanyang University, was established in the 1950s with the strong support of the Chinese community in Singapore. 1980 saw the merger of the University of Singapore and Nanyang University to create the National University of Singapore.
Education and Campus Life
NUS has three main campuses, Kent Ridge, Bukit Timah and Outram. You can get a National University of Singapore Degree from 15 colleges, faculties and schools in fields like arts and social sciences, business, computing, dentistry, design and engineering, law, medicine, public health, public policy and science. Its main campus in Kent Ridge also has University Town, a residential and educational complex that encourages learning and interaction beyond the traditional classroom.
The NUS figures for the 2024/25 academic year showed the university had about 29,600 undergraduate students and 15,400 graduate students, along with thousands of faculty members and researchers. It offers undergraduate, postgraduate and interdisciplinary programs and blends an international outlook with a strong focus on Asia.
Research is central to NUS’s academic mission. Its research activities span health and biomedical sciences, sustainability, advanced materials, artificial intelligence, data science, cybersecurity and the humanities and social sciences. This work is supported by the university through faculty-based research, university-level institutes, research centers, corporate laboratories and collaborative programs.
Since its inception as a small medical school catering to the local population, NUS has grown into a large, multidisciplinary university with students, researchers and academic collaborations extending far beyond Singapore. The history of the institution is deeply intertwined with the development of Singapore itself, particularly in the country’s growth in education, research and innovation.