Established by decree of the Council of the People's Commissars of the USSR in 1931, it was previously known as the Stalingrad Industrial Pedagogical Institute.

It was completely ruined during the Stalingrad battle of World War II and its library burnt out.

The university maintains international academic relations with higher education institutions o United States, Germany, Austria, Netherlands, France, People's Republic of China, Serbia, Czechoslovakia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan.

Its fund of research literature on Psychology and Pedagogics[citation needed] is represented by the monographs by Yury Babansky, Pavel Blonsky, Vasily Vodovozov (ru:Водовозов, Василий Иванович), Vasily Vakhterov (ru:Вахтеров, Василий Порфирьевич), Anatoly Zak, Leonid Zankov (ru:Занков, Леонид Владимирович), John Amos Comenius, Peter Lesgaft, Anton Makarenko, Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, Nikolay Pirogov, Vasyl Sukhomlynsky, Konstantin Ushinsky, Lev Vygotsky, Daniil Elconin (ru:Эльконин, Даниил Борисович, de:Daniil Borissowitsch Elkonin), and David Feldstein.

Scientific research results have been published ten times a year in the VSPU journal, titled Izvestia Volgogradskogo Pedagogicheskogo Universiteta (Russian: Известия Волгоградского государственного педагогического университета), ISSN 1815-9044.