At its opening, it consisted of two schools: Architecture and Urban Planning, and Banking and Economics, with 174 students.

Soon the School of Literature and Foreign Languages began in downtown Tehran.

The first graduate academic degree program was the Master's course in the School of Architecture, launched in 1961.

Shahid Beheshti University has been sanctioned by governments in the EU, US, Australia, Canada, and Switzerland for their links to Iran's nuclear program.

[2] This restricts business and financial transactions with the university, in some cases including its students.