The University of Baltimore was founded in 1925 as a private institution by civic leaders who wanted to provide low-cost, part-time evening study in business and law for working adults. Its first site was at the southeast corner of St. Paul and Mt. Vernon Place.
The campus soon moved north to Howard St., and it later migrated further north in midtown to its present location on Mt. Royal Ave. A Junior College opened in 1937, joining the Schools of Business and Law, and evolved into a four-year Liberal Arts College from 1959 to 1961.
In 1975, UBalt became a public institution and an upper-division university and began eliminating its freshman and sophomore classes, inter-collegiate athletics and other extracurricular activities such as the yearbook. In 1982, the business school became the Robert G. Merrick School of Business and the liberal arts college became the Yale Gordon College of Liberal Arts.
In 1988, UBalt fell under the governance of the Maryland Board of Regents, and became a part of what is now known as the University System of Maryland. Lower-division students returned in 2007 and the College of Public Affairs was established in 2010.