Rider University was founded in 1865 as Trenton Business College in the city of Trenton, New Jersey, USA. Andrew Rider was named the college’s first president and it was named after him the year before he stepped down in 1898. Women began attending in 1896 and the college continued to grow. In 1922 the college won accreditation to grant bachelor’s degrees in accounting and commercial science. The college began to broaden its curriculum beyond business, opening its liberal arts program in 1957. The college continued to grow and in 1959 facilities were moved to a new 208-acre suburban campus in Lawrence Township. As well as moving to a new campus the college also began a process of dividing its academic program into distinct schools and the process was complete in the early 1960s. Rider incorporated Westminster Choir College in 1991 and changed its name to Rider University in 1994.

Today Rider University has upwards of 5,000 students studying a wide range of postgraduate and undergraduate qualifications across five academic schools over two campuses. The student body is diverse, with people from 77 different countries choosing to study at Rider. The university offers over 60 majors across its five schools: the College of Arts and Sciences, the College of Business Administration, the Department of Graduate Education and the Department of Journalism and Communications.

The main campus is in the suburban district of Lawrenceville between the cities of Trenton and Princeton. The campus is green and wooded with landscaped lawns and a lake. There are numerous academic residential and administration buildings at the Lawrenceville campus and most of the university’s undergraduate programs are based there. Princeton campus (formerly the Westminster Choir School) specialises in musical education.