Edinboro initially consisted of a modest two-story building, including six classrooms.

By 1927, the advancement of academic programs to include liberal arts study required the school to rename itself Edinboro State Teachers College.

[6] Edinboro University offers 17 varsity sports: women's basketball, cross country, lacrosse, volleyball, swimming, soccer, softball, tennis, and indoor and outdoor track and field, and men's football, wrestling, cross country, basketball, swimming, tennis, wheelchair basketball, and outdoor track and field.

All but the wrestling and wheelchair basketball are NCAA Division II programs and members of the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference.

Alumni and attendees of Pennsylvania Western University include politicians such as L. C. Hughes (governor of Arizona Territory), Milton W. Shreve (member of the U.S. House of Representatives), and several members of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives; academics such as Robert Carothers (president of University of Rhode Island) and Eugene Eubanks (professor at University of Missouri–Kansas City and leader of school desegregation efforts); artists and entertainers such as photographer LaToya Ruby Frazier, Train singer Pat Monahan, and actress Sharon Stone; and Vicki Van Meter who at age 11 was the youngest aviator to fly across the continental United States.