and became a campus within the newly created University of Hawaiʻi System.
The university has been accredited by the WASC Senior College and University Commission or its predecessor since 1976. It offers thirty-three undergraduate and three graduate degree programs and has about 3,000 students; most students are residents of Hawaiʻi but many are international students.
== History ==
Although post-high school non-credit courses had been offered in Hilo as early as 1945, under the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa's Adult Education Services, the university was established as Hilo Center at Lyman Hall of the Hilo Boys School. After an attempt to close the school in 1951 by Governor Oren E. Long, Big Island residents, local legislators, and the University of Hawaiʻi Alumni Association led efforts to save its only college to then establish the University of Hawaiʻi Hilo Branch as a two-year campus of the university.
In 1955, the branch moved to its present location on a 30-acre (12 ha) parcel of land with an enlarged …
