For more than five centuries, the University of Louvain has ruled life in Leuven (the Dutch name of the city is Leuven, often Louvain in English). Leuven was founded in the ninth century and is the oldest city of the Duchy of Brabant. Together with its suburbs, it now counts about 90,000 inhabitants, which makes it the fourth largest city of Flanders.

Residents of the city see the year as divided into two periods, one with students and the other without. It is a city within a university and not a university within a city. Perhaps it is this which gives Leuven a unique atmosphere. Faculties, departments, and institutes are spread in and around the city.

Dating from the year 1425, the University has the honor of being the oldest continuous Catholic university in the world. Throughout the centuries the University has remained an important center of thought, maintaining close contact with the social, political, and cultural movements of the times. Until 1968, it was a single (bilingual) university. During the period 1960-1968, however, two fully autonomous units developed, one French-speaking and the other Dutch-speaking. In 1970 the University was officially divided: the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (K.U. Leuven) remained in the old city, while the Université Catholique de Louvain (U.C.L.) built a new campus in Ottignies (Louvain-la-Neuve). This division of Belgium's largest university corresponds to the composition of the Belgian state, with a culturally autonomous Dutch-speaking community in the north and a French-speaking one in the south.

Because of its location in the heart of Leuven, the American College has more interaction with the Dutch-speaking University; however, study at the French campus is possible, albeit less common. At the present time, the K.U. Leuven is the largest university and one of the major employers in Belgium, with about 33,000 students, 4,000 of whom come from 80 foreign countries. The university employs a staff of more than 8,000, including 4,600 researchers. The university hospitals also have a staff of more than 8,000.

As a Catholic university, the K.U. Leuven is a critical center of thought within the Catholic community. As such, it is deeply concerned with the relationship between science and faith, and with the dialogue between Church and world. On the basis of its Christian vision of humankind and society, the University stimulates continuous reflection on the main ethical and religious problems deriving from the development of science and technology, and from changes in social and cultural life. This reflection takes place in a free and open climate, in cooperation with kindred universities.