In January 1863, The Cuttack High School, established in January 1841, was expanded to impart collegiate education.

The cuttack College was renamed Ravenshaw College in 1878 in Recognition of the services by T.E. Ravenshaw,the then Commissioner of the Cuttak Division.

Notable amongst the alumni of Ravenshaw College are Biju Pattnaik, Dr.Pranakrushna Parija, Dr.Bansidhar Panda, Dr.Prativa Ray etc.

Since 1990-91 session the college has been granted autonomy and will shortly be converted into an unitary University under the name of Ravenshaw Collegiate University.

Besides regular courses in arts, science and commerce, the college offers several professional, technical and self-financing courses such as MCA, BBA, BSc in IT and MSc in biotechnology, to name a few.

The college has 23 departments, 17 of which offer postgraduate courses. A recognised centre for doctoral and postdoctoral research, it offers M Phil courses in 12 subjects. It has more than 150 teachers and 5,000 students and its library is one of the biggest in the state, with more than 2,00,000 books, magazines and periodicals.

Its cavernous College Hall hosted the first legislative assembly of the newly created Orissa between 1937 and 1952.

Ravenshaw has another-if rare-distinction. It's arguably the only college in the country that has given birth to a university, not the other way around.

Utkal University, now the university Ravenshaw is affiliated to, was born on its campus in 1943.

The university was "nursed and nurtured" before it was able to stand on its feet and move to its present campus in Bhubaneswar, the state capital.

No wonder the autonomous college, whose history is synonymous with the history of higher education in the state, was felicitated with a commemorative postal stamp way back in 1978.