On 26 July 1984, the president formed a 9-member Board of Trustees for the Santosh Islami University (SEB) with educationist Mir Fakruzzaman as chairman and Syed Irfanul Bari as secretary.

Yousuf Sharif Ahmed Khan was appointed as vice-chancellor by the government on 21 November 2002, and classes began on 25 October 2003 with 5 teachers and 83 students.

[2] Initially, the university had two departments, Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) and Information and Communication Technology (ICT).

[4][5][6] In the 2010–2011 academic session, four new departments were added: Business Administration,[citation needed] Chemistry, Mathematics and Statistics, and Physics.

[7][8][9] The Department of Economics was established within the Faculty of Social Science in 2012–2013, and in 2013–2014 Pharmacy and Biochemistry & Molecular Biology were founded.

University staff were beaten, payments were extorted, buildings were vandalized, classrooms set on fire and in May 2015, a student leader named Abu Sadaat Muhammed Khaled Musharraf was murdered.

[10][11][12] The main campus is located in Santosh, in the southwestern part of Tangail, a city about 75 kilometres (47 mi) north-west of Dhaka.

The main campus occupies about 70.69 acres (0.2861 km2)[citation needed] and a budget of approximately 3.66 billion BDT has been approved by the government for the enlargement of the university.

[citation needed][18] This area includes six faculties, the administrative building, the central library, a cafeteria, seven student halls, a medical centre and a sports field.

It occupies 10 acres of land, and includes a veterinary hospital, an animal shed, an auditorium and a student hall.

After completion of the higher secondary level (HSC) education, a student can submit an application for an undergraduate admission test if they fulfil the minimum requirement.

Students with a minimum grade in the subjects related to the respective departments in their higher secondary examination are allowed to appear in the admission test.