It is one of the top universities in Indonesia and has been accredited internationally based on the Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area (ESG).

In 1960, the B-I and B-II courses were integrated into Faculty of Education and Teacher Training (Indonesian: Fakultas Keguruan dan Ilmu Pendidikan or FKIP) to graduate advanced school teachers.

January 3, 1963, FKIP and the Institute of Teacher Training (founded in 1962) was merged with IKIP Malang Cabang Surabaya.

UNESA has two main campuses in Ketintang and Lidah Wetan, a supporting campus for Department of Extraordinary Education in Gedangan, Sidoarjo, two language centers in Ketintang Campus and Dr. Moestopo, and laboratory schools for education-based programs, including a kindergarten, an elementary school and two middle schools.

The Lidah Wetan Campus complex, or colloquially also abbreviated as the Liwet Campus serves as the current main campus of the university and it is surrounded by another supporting Unesa's facilitation complex, such as the university swimming pool area, Graha Unesa (a designated convention hall for convocation or graduation), etc.

In the Surabaya State University, the faculties are natively known as fakultas (from Latin facultas) and the departments known as jurusan (from Javanese ꦗꦸꦫꦸꦱꦤ꧀ 'jurusan').

[21] Besides English, another (non-native) languages are also spoken by the students in respective faculties and departments (especially in the Faculty of Languages and Arts), such as German (Standard German), Japanese (Standard Japanese), Chinese (Mandarin/Standard Chinese), etc.