[8][9] According to Pericles Lewis, this decision was part of NUS' plan for a "broader restructuring of Singapore’s educational offerings, one that had been conceived of in 2018".

[12] Under the presidency of Richard Levin, Yale began developing a "internationalization" strategy that included expanding financial resources for international students and study abroad programs, founding the Yale World Fellows and the Center for the Study of Globalization, and joining the International Alliance of Research Universities.

[18][19] Levin and National University of Singapore President Tan Chorh Chuan discussed the concept of a joint liberal arts college at the 2009 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland,[20] and eighteen months later, Levin and Yale Provost Peter Salovey circulated to the Yale faculty a prospectus for a liberal arts college in Singapore.

Among the given reasons for the initiative were "develop[ing] a novel curriculum spanning Western and Asian cultures" and better preparing students for "an interconnected, interdependent global environment".

Faculty and students in the College will be free to conduct scholarship and research and publish the results, and to teach in the classroom and express themselves on campus, bearing in mind the need to act in accordance with accepted scholarly and professional standards and the regulations of the College.” The college is also “committed to basing judgments concerning the admission, education, and employment of individuals upon their qualifications and abilities.”[27] The closure of Yale-NUS College was initiated by NUS President Tan Eng Chye, who approached Yale President Peter Salovey in July 2021 with the decision, surprising Yale administrators who "were confident that Yale-NUS was living up to its ambitions".

[43] The college employed a holistic approach in evaluating applicants: while academic achievement as reflected in examinations grades is a primary consideration, interviews, recommendations, essays and extracurricular accomplishments were also given significant weight in the process.

[46] The Yale-NUS common curriculum is a set of interconnected courses designed to provide all students with a shared, intensive exploration of themes and topics ranging across all the academic disciplines, from science to the humanities.

The fields correspond to Yale-NUS's existing majors, with the exception of Philosophy, Politics and Economics and the Double Degree Programme with Law.

The largest five majors among the students were Arts and Humanities; Philosophy, Politics and Economics; Environmental Studies; Psychology; and Mathematical, Computational and Statistical Sciences.

Yale-NUS graduates were employed in diverse industries, which include Financial and Insurance, Business and Management Consultancy, Information & Communication, Scientific Research & Development, and Education.

[54] Yale-NUS offers four Special and Concurrent Degree Programmes: The Yale-NUS Centre for International and Professional Experience integrates traditionally separate and often silo-ed components of experience based learning (such as study abroad, summer sessions, internships, career services, leadership and service programming, research attachments) under one roof.

Each has its own dining hall, courtyard, student suites, sky-gardens, faculty residences, study-spaces, intramural teams, and butteries, informal student-run eateries that are a Yale tradition.

Yale-NUS faculty members Derek Heng, a historian; Neil Clarke, a biochemist; Steven Bernasek, a chemist and former Executive Vice President (Academic Affairs); Khoo Hoon Eng, a toxicologist, Amber Carpenter, a philosophy professor; and Lynette Chua, a law professor, served as subsequent rectors of the residential colleges.

As the first-years transitioned into the collegiate living experience, they were originally aided by Dean's Fellows,[63] a group of recent college graduates picked from various higher educational backgrounds, including Amherst, Carleton, Princeton, Reed, Mt.

In addition to visible sustainable design strategies such as the biofiltration pond and the frequent use of natural ventilation, the campus integrates advanced building systems for energy efficiency.

[76] As of 2024, over 1,300 students from the college's first seven cohorts have graduated, and are living and working across five continents in cities as diverse as Boston, Dublin, Lagos, London, Melbourne, New York, Seattle, and Seoul, in addition to Singapore.

Since ratification, the Yale-NUS Student Government held focus group discussions to gather feedback on the mascot design and name.

Seyla Benhabib, a political philosopher at Yale, calling it a "naïve missionary sentiment," asked, "Do we need to go to Singapore to advance interdisciplinarity and a revival of the liberal arts?

"[89] The chairs of the faculty search committee responded, "the new college will require faculty to rethink their pedagogical assumptions and to consider such innovations as integrated and interactive approaches to science; writing across the curriculum; computation, computer simulations and interpretation of large data sets; and the honing of quantitative, communication and other skills.

"[90] Howard Bloch, a Sterling Professor of French, said that "As a nexus between India, China and the West, Singapore’s location favors an important conceptual realignment of the humanities that will be a long time coming to the home campus in New Haven — that is, a synthesis of the ways that ideas and creative works of East and West intersect historically as well as conceptually with each other.

"[95] In spring 2012, the Yale College faculty passed a resolution stating, "We urge Yale-NUS to respect, protect and further principles of non-discrimination for all, including sexual minorities and migrant workers; and to uphold civil liberty and political freedom on campus and in the broader society".

[96] In the summer, prompted by a Wall Street Journal report that students would not be allowed to stage protests or form political parties, Human Rights Watch stated that it disapproved such restrictions.

[97][98] John Riady, an associate professor of law at the Pelita Harapan University in Indonesia, defended the venture, stating that "Singapore and Asia are in the middle of great transitions, and Yale has an opportunity to shape that process and put its stamp on a rising continent.

[104] The college received increased media scrutiny in response to student calls for the resignation of Chan Heng Chee, a Yale-NUS Governing Board Member and Singapore's Ambassador-at-Large.

Chan defended Section 377A of the Singaporean Penal Code, a law forbidding sodomy, at the United Nations Human Rights Council's Universal Periodic Review in Geneva in January 2016.

[105] In February, The Octant published an op-ed by Nik Carverhill that called on Chan to either take a stand against Section 377A or relinquish her seat on the governing board.

[106] In response, Chan attended a closed door dialogue in March, hosted by the Yale-NUS Student Government and The G Spot, a gender and sexuality alliance on campus, to discuss Singapore's approach to human-rights.

Barron's Magazine's article “Yale goes to Asia” highlighted how education experts such as Ben Nelson, CEO of the Minerva Project, particularly likes Yale-NUS’ emphasis on seminars and its requirement that all students in their first two years take pretty much the same core curriculum, including philosophy and political thought, literature and humanities, and modern social thought.

This has led to a re-conceptualization of majors as complements to a core curriculum, and, in turn, to the welcoming of faculty with diverse skill sets over those tethered to divisive academic specialisations.

[114] The closure of Yale-NUS, announced in 2021, has generated discussions on the future of transnational higher education, with Kevin Kinser, head of education-policy studies at Pennsylvania State University, being among analysts who expressed surprise at the dissolution of the collaboration.