COTTON UNIVERSITY

Cotton University is a public state university located in Guwahati, Assam, India, established in 2017 through an Act of the Assam Legislative Assembly that merged Cotton College State University and Cotton College. Its predecessor, Cotton College, was founded in 1901 by Sir Henry Stedman Cotton, then Chief Commissioner of Assam, and was the oldest institute of higher education in Assam and Northeast India. Before 1948 it was affiliated with Calcutta University, and it later became a constituent college of Gauhati University in 1948, and of Cotton College State University in 2011. The Cotton University Act, 2017, resolved disputes between the college and the university, leading to their complete merger and the renaming of the institution as Cotton University. The university's campus spans 39.82 acres in Panbazar, Guwahati. It was accredited with an 'A++' grade by NAAC in 2016, later revised to an 'A' grade in 2024. The university has appeared in the National Institutional Ranking Framework's top 200 list, and as of 2024 was ranked 373rd. The institution has also been the site of student political activity and protests, including incidents in 2018 and 2019.