The University of Niš (Serbian: Универзитет у Нишу, Univerzitet u Nišu) is a university located in Niš, Serbia. It was founded in 1965 and is organized in 13 faculties. The University of Niš was incorporated as an independent degree-granting institution on June 15, 1965. Its establishment rounded off an important, in many ways pioneering, period in the more recent history of the town which started in 1960 when the first undergraduate programs commenced in Niš under the academic patronage of the University of Belgrade. They were institutionalized as the faculties of Law & Economics, Medicine, and Engineering, constituting a core from which a more and more complex and richer physiognomy of the University would systematically develop, following the demands of times and life itself. The University started its independent life with 234 full-time teaching staff and 6,800 students. The increase of the student population, the development of new disciplines and the rising needs of the immediate and broader industrial and social environment brought about a reorganization of the existing faculties and foundation of new ones.