A comprehensive and detailed history of modern higher education in India is yet to be written. Following is the Chronological list of Higher Education Institutions from modern day India's pre-independent period based on my search so far. I invite the netizens who land up on this post to help make more comprehensive and complete, posting on the information they might have along with weblinks in the comment section below. Since both colleges and universities are part of University system and whether an institution remained a college or university was a political decision and not educational one, I do not make a distinction between them in the list below.
- St Paul’s College, Goa-Portuguese [Jesuit] (1542-578)
- The Delhi College [Now Zakir Husain Delhi College], Delhi, 1792
- Fort William College, Kolkata, West Bengal (1800)
- CMS College, Kottayam, Kerala (1815)
- Presidency College [Presidency University] (1817)
- Serampore College, West Bengal Danish Charter (1818/1827)
- Deccan Herald, Maharashtra (1821)
- Ecole de Médicine de Pondichéry (1823) in Pondichery by French
- Agra College, Agra, Uttar Pradesh (1823)
- Scottish Church College, Kokata, West Bengal (1830)
- Elphinstone College, Maharashtra (1834) [Became separate college from high school in 1856]
- Calcutta Medical College, (1835)
- Madras Christian College, Chennai, Tamil Nadu (1837)
- Presidency College, Madras (1840)
- Pachaiyappa's College, Chennai (1842) [Gained College Status in 1889]
- St. Joseph's College, Tiruchirappalli, Tamil Nadu [Jesuit] (1844)
- University Maharaja College, Jaipur, Rajasthan (1844) [Established as Maharaja's School]
- Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, Roorkee, Uttarakhand, (1847) [Started as 'Civil Engineering College at Roorkee' Took the name 'Thomason College of Civil Engineering at Roorkee' in 1854, became "The Roorkee University" in 1948 and became Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee in 2001. Started the first MArch programme in India in 1969]
- University of Calcutta (1857)
- University of Mumbai (1857)
- University of Madras (1857) [Established as Madras University]
- St. Xavier's College, Kolkata, West Bengal, (1860)
- Patna College, Patna, Bihar (1863)
- University College, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala (1866) [Initially called H.H. The Maharaja's College]
- Ravenshaw College, Cuttack, Odisha (1868) [Became Ravenshaw University in 2006]
- St. Xavier's College, Mumbai, Maharashtra, (1869)
- Aligarh Muslim University/Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College (1875) [Started with the name ‘Madrasatul Uloom Musalmanan-e-Hind’ was renamed ‘Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College’ I 1877. Became Aligarh Muslim University in 1920]
- Mohindra College, Patiala, Punjab (1875) [Also called Government Mohindra College]
- St Aloysius College, Mangalore, Karnataka (1880)
- St Stephen's College, Delhi 1881
- The American College, Madurai, Tamil Nadu (1881) [Initial years called Pasumalai College]
- Panjab University, Chandigarh (1882)
- St. Joseph's College (Autonomous), Bangalore (1882) [Jesuit]
- Hislop College, Nagpur, Mahrashtra (1883) [Started the first Journalism Department in India in 1954]
- Vasantrao Naik Government Institute of Arts and Social Sciences, Nagpur, Mahrarashtra, (1885) started as Morris College, First College in Nagpur
- Fergusson College, Pune, Maharashtra (1885) [Now Fergusson University]
- Central College Bangalore, Karnataka (1886)
- Allahabad University (1887)
- Veermata Jijabai Technological Institute, Mumbai, Maharashtra (1887) [Established as Victoria Jubilee Technical Institute, took the present name in 1997]
- St Joseph's College, Darjeeling, West Bengal (1888) [Jesuit]
- Maharaja's College, Mysore, Karnataka (1889)
- Scott Christian College, Nagercoil, Tamil Nadu (1893)
- Voorhees College, Vellore, Tamil Nadu (1898)
- Hindu College, Delhi, 1899
- College of Agriculture, Nagpur, Mahrashtra (1906)
- Jadavpur University, (1906) [From 1906 known as Bengal Technical Institute and later as from 1910 College of Engineering and Technology, Bengal, was made Jadavpur University in 1955]
- Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, Karnataka (1909)
- Sydenham College of Commerce and Economics (1913) [Oldest Commerce College in Asia]
- Banaras Hindu University (1916)
- University of Mysore (1916)
- Patna University, (1917)
- Ramjas College Delhi, 1917
- College of Engineering, Bangalore, Karnataka (1917) [Now called University Visvesvaraya College of Engineering]
- Mysore Medical School, Mysore Karnatka (1917) [In 1924 it became Mysore Medial School and now called Mysore Medical College & Research Institute]
- Maharani's College, Mysore, Karnataka, (1917) [1979 bifurcated Maharani's Science College for Women and the Maharani's Arts College for Women]
- Osmania University, Hyderabad, (1918)
- Jamia Millia Islamia, Aligarh/New Delhi (1920)
- Mahatma Gandhi Kashi Vidyapeeth, Varanasi (1921)
- University of Lucknow, (1921)) [Established as Delhi University]
- Visva-Bharati University, Santiniketan West Bengal, 1921
- Union Christian College, Aluva, Kerala (1921)
- Government Science College, Bangalore, Karnataka (1921)
- St Berchmans College, Changanassery, Kerala (1922)
- University of Delhi, Delhi(1922)
- Nagpur University, [Rashtrasant Tukadoji Maharaj Nagpur University] Nagpur (1923)
- St. Xavier's College, Palayamkottai, Tamil Nadu, (1923)
- St. Edmund's College, Shillong, Meghalaya (1924) [Oldest college in Meghalaya, Second Oldest in North East)
- Loyola College, Chennai, Tamil Nadu (1925)
- Andhra University, Visakhapatnam (1926)
- Shri Ram College of Commerce, Delhi (1926) [Education in commerce began 1920 however it became a college in 1926 with affiliation to University of Delhi]
- Agra University [Now Dr. B.R. Ambedkar University), Agra, (1927)
- Annamalai University, Chidambaram, Tamil Nadu, 1929
- University of Kerala, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala (1937) [Established as Travancore University]
- College of Engineering Trivandrum, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala (1939)
- Vijaya College, Bangalore, Karnataka (1942)
- St. Xavier's College, Ranchi, Jharkhand, (1944)
- Govt. College for Women Parade, Jammu, Jammu and Kashmir (1944) [Established as Maharani Mahila College]
- G.S. College of Commerce and Economics, Nagpur, Maharashtra (1945)
- B M S College of Engineering , Bangalore (1946) -India’s first Private Engineering College
- B.V. Bhoomaraddi College of Engineering and Technology (1947) [From 2014 KLE Technological University]