The date of establishment or date of founding of an institution is the date on which that institution chooses to claim as its starting point. Often the criteria that define a date of establishment or founding are ill-defined—or more specifically, are ill-defined in general, although each institution tends to adopt a rather rigid definition of its own date of establishment.

Likewise, a university may define 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
• If the university derived from a previously-established institution, either the reorganization or the establishment of the parent institution.

Yet still more variations on the definition of the date on which a university was established are possible as considered reasonable by each university's governing body or executive officers.