University of San Francisco

Our location in the heart of San Francisco places us at the core of Silicon Valley, the technology boom, and diverse cultures. Our mission is to promote learning in the Jesuit Catholic tradition. The university offers undergraduate, graduate, and professional students the knowledge and skills needed to succeed as persons and professionals, and the values and sensitivity necessary to be men and women for others. The university will distinguish itself as a diverse, socially responsible learning community of high quality scholarship and academic rigor sustained by a faith that does justice. The university will draw from the cultural, intellectual, and economic resources of the San Francisco Bay Area and its location on the Pacific Rim to enrich and strengthen its educational programs.

The University of San Francisco was founded in 1855 by the Jesuits. The founding president, Anthony Maraschi, S.J., an Italian immigrant, borrowed $11,500 to build a Jesuit church and school on a few sand dunes on the south side of Market Street and proclaimed, “Here, in time, will be the heart of a great city.” Around the original site of USF, a dynamic, diverse, and distinctive city has grown and thrives. There are now over 10,000 students enrolled in programs at the undergraduate and graduate levels dedicated to a wide range of studies—from public health and nursing to creative writing and law.

USF Mission

Since 1855, the University of San Francisco has dedicated itself to offering a daring and dynamic liberal arts education in the Jesuit, Catholic tradition. As a community, we empower and hold accountable our students, faculty, librarians, staff, administrators, alumni, and community partners to be persons for and with others, to care for our common home, including the native lands on which our campuses reside, and to promote the common good by critically, thoughtfully, and innovatively addressing inequities to create a more humane and just world.

We seek to live USF’s mission by nurturing a diverse, ever-expanding community where persons of all races and ethnicities, religions, sexual orientations, genders, generations, abilities, nationalities, occupations, and socioeconomic backgrounds are honored and accompanied. We are committed to educating hearts and minds to cultivate the full, integral development of each person and all persons; pursuing learning as a lifelong humanizing and liberating social activity; and advancing excellence as the standard for teaching, scholarship, creative expression, and service. Inspired by a faith that does justice, we strive to humbly and responsibly engage with, and contribute to, the cultural, intellectual, economic and spiritual gifts and talents of the San Francisco Bay Area and the global communities to which we belong.