over 4800 undergraduates and nearly 900 graduate students in more than 80 undergraduate majors and minors and 32 graduate programs.
WSU was one of several Massachusetts State Universities that was founded as a normal school in the 19th century before evolving into a state college in the 1960s and achieving university status in 2012. WSU is administered by the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education which oversees 29 campuses including community colleges, state universities, and research universities across the Commonwealth.
== History ==
Founded in 1874 as the Massachusetts State Normal School at Worcester, WSU was the fifth of nine teacher training colleges in the state. Spurred by the success of a city-run normal school founded two years earlier, its school committee successfully petitioned the Massachusetts General Court for a state-sponsored institution in Worcester. The original campus was located in a Second Empire-style stone building on St. Ann's Hill, near the city's downtown. By 1900, the campus …
