Cotton University, erstwhile Cotton College, is a Public State University located in Guwahati, the capital city of Assam. Its glorious history starts with Manik Chandra Barooah who, owing to huge public pressure, wrote a letter in 1899 to the British government to open a college in Guwahati. At that point of time Assam was the only of British Provinces in India without a college and Guwahati was regarded as the most suitable location in the region. Convinced by the arguments, Sir Henry John Stedman Cotton, K.C.S.I., the then Chief Commissioner of Assam, announced on 3rd November, 1899 that a college would be opened in Guwahati. Cotton College, the name decided by the public to honour its founder, was inaugurated on 27th May 1901 by Sir Henry Cotton himself. The institution started functioning with five professors, which included Frederick William Sudmersen, the first Principal of the College, and 37 students. At the time of inception, Cotton College was affiliated to Calcutta University. Located at the political and cultural centre of the region, the College catered to the urgent need for accessible higher education. In its long remarkable journey of more than a hundred years, this institution has always been witness to and an active participant in most of the socio-cultural and political debates, discourses and movements of contemporary times. It had also been the centre of the national freedom movement as well as numerous literary and cultural engagements of the state that cemented Assam’s status as an integral part of India.

          As a Higher Education institution, Cotton College has gone through several milestones from the initial phase of being under Calcutta University to the present when it is one of the full-fledged autonomous state universities of Assam. The first juncture came after the establishment of Gauhati University in 1948, when Cotton College got affiliated to it and became its constituent college. On 16th October 1992, the College was declared as a Centre of Excellence, an occasion celebrated in a solemn ceremony with Dr. Shankar Dayal Sharma, the then President of India. Post this recognition, the institution officially became a Post-Graduate (PG) College. Cotton College celebrated its centennial with a year-long program from 27th May 2001 to 26th May 2002 and its closing ceremony was graced by the then Vice President of India Krishan Kant. This landmark occasion got recognition from the India Post too, which issued a ₹ 4.00 stamp featuring one of the heritage buildings of Cotton College in May, 2002.

          In 2011, Cotton College State University was established vide an Act of the Government of Assam, with Cotton College as its constituent unit. Cotton University came into existence in 2017 via The Cotton University Act, 2017 that enabled the unification of Cotton College State University and Cotton College. The university is a reputed premier institute of higher learning in Assam at present. Being in range of 150–200 in the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) Rank List in May 2020, it is one of the top 200 universities in the nation.