NHH was founded to provide the first formal training in business studies with a two-year vocational degree, called handelskandidat ("candidate of commerce").

After much lobbying and hard work, especially by Kristoffer Lehmkuhl, NHH was finally opened by King Haakon VII on Monday 7 September 1936, ten years before the University of Bergen was established.

Graduates and staff began to go to the US to continue their studies and work for a period, a trend that greatly increased in the 1960s and 1970s.

By the late 1950s NHH had outgrown its original premises and work began on developing a new campus for the school at Sandviken, just outside Bergen city centre.

In 1963, the school moved to its new campus, an event which in many ways marked the transition to a new period characterised by a rapid increase in the number of students as well as teachers.

Many successful graduates went to the US to study for doctorates and came back to NHH with international experience and a more research based focus.

Many faculty members took advantage of sabbaticals to study and continue their research overseas, many textbooks were published and the volume of publications in international journals increased significantly.

As the faculty grew and developed so did the academic offerings, with several advanced level courses established.

A master level programme, høyere avdelingstudium (HAS), was introduced in 1972 as a preparation for siviløkonom students wishing to continue on to doctoral studies; and in 1973 Professor Dag Coward established a master level programme for students wishing to specialise in auditing, accounting and the financial management of firms, the høyere revisorstudium (HRS).

Following this, greater emphasis has been placed on exchange arrangements for students, and the school joined the prestigious Community of European Management Schools (CEMS) and the Erasmus programme in 1992 and the global Partnership in International Management (PIM) network in 1995.

[8] In 2007 NHH announced the launching of a new master programme taught fully in English, the MSc in Energy, Natural Resources and the Environment.

NHH annually admits 450 student to its sole undergraduate programme in Economics and Business Administration.

[17] The school attracts applicants from all parts of Norway and aims to have a varied student body.

Undergraduate NHH students are secured transfers to the school's master's programmes after completing the bachelor's degree.

The school offers one three-year undergraduate programme in Economics and Business Administration, taught in Norwegian.

This money helps fund the Student Welfare Organisation in Bergen, which subsidises kindergartens, health services, housing and cultural initiatives.

This is achieved through conferences, seminars, company visits, excursions in Norway and abroad and trainee programs in various businesses.

[35] Siv Jensen is Norway's Minister of Finance[36] and Yngve Slyngstad is CEO of Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM),[37] the part of the Norwegian Central Bank responsible for managing Norway's sovereign wealth fund.