Cheyney University of Pennsylvania is a public, co-educational historically black university that is a part of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education. Cheyney University has a 275-acre campus that is located in the Cheyney community in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. Cheyney University is a member-school of Thurgood Marshall College Fund. The university offers bachelor's and master's degrees. It was founded as the African Institute in February 1837 and renamed the Institute of Colored Youth (ICY) in April 1837. Cheyney University is the oldest African-American institution of higher learning.

Unlike Lincoln University (founded in 1854) and some other HBCU, Cheyney did not award degrees until 1914, when it adopted the curriculum of a normal school (teacher training). The African Institute was founded by Richard Humphreys, a Quaker philanthropist who bequeathed $10,000 (one-tenth of his estate) to design and establish a school to educate people of African descent and prepare them as teachers.

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