Andhra University is not just one of the oldest educational institutions in the country, but is also the first to be conceived as a residential and teaching-cum-affiliating University, mainly devoted to post-graduate teaching and research.
The people of the State have an emotional attachment to the institution, since it came into being after a prolonged and collective struggle of the Telugu elite for a University in the educationally backward northern Circars and Ceded districts of the erstwhile Madras Presidency.
Andhra University was constituted in the year 1926 by the Madras Act of 1926. The 100 years old institution is fortunate to have Sir C.R. Reddy as its founder Vice-Chancellor, as the steps taken by this visionary proved to be fruitful in the long run.
Former President of India Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan was one of its Vice-Chancellors who succeed Dr. C. R. Reddy in 1931. The University College of Arts was inaugurated on 1 st July, 1931. The inaugural courses were Telugu language and literature, History, Economics and Politics. A year later, the College of Science and Technology came into being with Honours courses in Physics and Chemistry. The University pioneered in introducing many new courses in Science, Arts, Management and Engineering in the country.