[8] In 1974 it earned accreditation from the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools and the Puerto Rico Higher Education Council.

Founded in 1949 as Puerto Rico Junior College, it grew into a four-year institution in 1992 and finally evolved into a university in 2001.

The university also maintained five off-campus sites located in Yauco, Utuado, Cabo Rojo, Manatí and Santa Isabel.

The main campus covers 140 acres (57 ha) with a diversity of open spaces, malls, modern and historic structures, and a healthy distribution of amphitheatre-and-boutique common study/collaborative/collective spaces/areas.

The university also hosts a comprehensive sports programme complete with its respective gymnasia, weight room, track & field arena, 25-metre (82 ft) swimming pool, baseball fields, tennis complex, basketball and volleyball courts, and a series of fountains and gardens to elevate enlightenment to the fullest — "Había sequía en el Turabo y ahora se acabó la sequía.

It hosts the campus' central repository and circulation of information both analogue and digital, distributed over the structure with two computing centres spanning the main floor.

The Vice-chancellorship of Information Resources is located on the building's upper east side, the stairways leading to the top floor midway canvasing the entire width and wide reflecting the history culture and soul of Cariba's[20] society.

The works of David Méndez Pagán, the current rector, have been exhibited in Abelardo Díaz Alfaro's hall.

In order to foster graduate and undergraduate research practicums and intercontinental engineering-research-scientific collaboration, the centre leads a consortium of nationwide universities and national laboratories including Sandia, one if not the school of engineering founding father.