Originally a religious institution, today the university has 15 faculties (colleges) at its Havana campus and distance learning centers throughout Cuba.

In February 2022, thanks to its contributions in the fight against COVID-19, the institute received the Science and Innovation award from the Union of Latin American Universities,[4] during the celebration of the International Congress on Higher Education.

[5] There are 16 faculties into which the university is divided: Before the Cuban Revolution of 1959, students joined different organizations, aligning themselves directly or indirectly with some political party.

The strongest of all these organizations was the FEU (Federación Estudiantil Universitaria or University Students Federation) created by Julio Antonio Mella, a co-founder of the Cuban Communist Party in the 1920s.

After the coup d'état by Fulgencio Batista in 1952, when free and democratic elections were suspended, the violent clashes between university students and Cuban police reached their extremes.

Students known to be members of the FEU were violently tortured and killed in the streets of Havana, and the organization reacted with an irregular war in the city, aiming mainly to assassinate police officers of high rank, like the chief of the police in Havana, Blanco Rico, who was killed by 4 FEU members.

While Fidel Castro was hiding in the Sierra Maestra mountains, the FEU, led by Jose Antonio Echeverria, attempted to kill Fulgencio Batista in an armed assault at the Cuban Presidential Palace on 13 March 1957.