Saint Joseph's University (also referred to as SJU or St. Joe's) is a private, coeducational Roman Catholic Jesuit university located in the Philadelphia suburb of Merion Station in Lower Merion Township on the historic Philadelphia Main Line.

The University was founded in 1851 as Saint Joseph's College by the Society of Jesus.

Saint Joseph's is the seventh oldest Jesuit university in the United States and one of 28 member institutions of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities.

The Society of Jesus, S.J., SJ or SI) is a male religious congregation of the Catholic Church which originated in Spain.

The members are called Jesuits.

The society is engaged in evangelization and apostolic ministry in 112 nations on six continents.

Jesuits work in education (founding schools, colleges, universities and seminaries), intellectual research, and cultural pursuits.

Jesuits also give retreats, minister in hospitals and parishes, and promote social justice and ecumenical dialogue.

Education in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania has a rich and storied history.

This history began with Benjamin Franklin's founding of the University of Pennsylvania as European styled school and America's first university.

Today's Philadelphia region is home to nearly 300,000 college students, numerous private and parochial secondary schools, and the 8th largest school district in the country.

Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the fifth-most populous city in the United States, with an estimated population of 1,567,442 and more than 6 million in the seventh-largest metropolitan statistical area.

Philadelphia is the economic and cultural anchor of the Delaware Valleya region located in the Northeastern United States at the confluence of the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers with 7.2 million people residing in the eighth-largest combined statistical area in the United States.

The Catholic University of America (CUA) is a private university located in Washington, D.C. in the United States.

It is a pontifical university of the Catholic Church in the United States and the only institution of higher education founded by the U.S. Catholic bishops.

Established in 1887 as a graduate and research center following approval by Pope Leo XIII on Easter Sunday, the university began offering undergraduate education in 1904.

The university's campus lies within the Brookland neighborhood, known as "Little Rome", which contains 60 Catholic institutions, including Trinity Washington University and the Dominican House of Studies.