The Shansi Imperial University was prepared in 1901 by Cen Chunxuan, then-governor of Shanxi, and on May 8, 1902, the Shansi Imperial University officially added the College of Western Studies, which was headed by the Welsh Baptist missionary Timothy Richard, focusing on teaching western technologies.

Other than the Chinese government funding, one of the early funding sources of Shanxi University was the returned money from the British government with the Boxer Indemnity of Taiyuan massacre after Boxer Protocol, which was used to support the College of Western Studies.

Shanxi University thus stopped teaching until 1938 it was rebuilt in Sanyuan, Shaan'xi (陕西) in 1938, and later it was moved again to Yichuan.

Shanxi University finally moved back Taiyuan in 1946, after the Chinese victory over Japan of the second world war.

In 1952, by order of the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China, the Department of Liberal Arts and the Department of Science were combined to form Shanxi Normal College, the School of Law was integrated into Renmin University of China in Beijing.