[note 2] The institution offered its first academic certificate program in September 2019, and accepted its first cohort of full-time undergraduate students in 2021.

[7] While the legislature was prorogued, a report released by the Advisory Committee on French-language Post-secondary Education in Central and Southwestern Ontario noted that post-secondary Francophone education was insufficient in central and southwestern Ontario, and recommended establishing a Francophone university within Greater Toronto to help rectify the issue.

[7] The legislation establishing the institution, the Université de l’Ontario français Act, 2017, received royal assent on 14 December 2017, and formally went into effect on 9 April 2018 at the same time as the appointment of the university's first board of governors.

[8][7][9] Normand Labrie was appointed by the board of governors as the university's interim president on 1 July 2018 and served until 30 June 2019.

[13] Following the 2018 Ontario general election, the newly formed Progressive Conservative government announced plans to cancel funding for the establishment of the institution.

[9][14] The question of funding became a major political issue for the new government among the province's Franco-Ontarian residents and it resonated with francophones across the country.

Franco-Ontarian Member of Provincial Parliament Amanda Simard crossed the floor from the Progressive Conservatives, eventually joining the Liberal party, citing the decision as part of the reason for her move.

The university campus is located at 9 Lower Jarvis Street, at the base of a high-rise in the East Bayfront neighbourhood of downtown Toronto.