FAU has quickly grown to become one of the largest institutions in the state by enrollment. FAU opened in as the first public university in the Miami metro area , offering only upper-division and graduate level courses.
Initial enrollment was only students, increasing in when the university admitted its first lower-division undergraduate students. On July 15, , to meet the burgeoning educational demands of South Florida, the state legislature passed an act authorizing the establishment of a new university in the city of Boca Raton.
The base was built on the existing Boca Raton Airport and on 5, acres The land was seized through eminent domain , leaving many Japanese-Americans little recourse in the early days of World War II. The airbase was used for radar training, anti-submarine patrols along the coast, and as a stop-over point for planes being ferried to Africa and Europe via South America. The airfield was composed of four runways, still visible on the Boca Campus today and mainly used for parking.
By early , the military decided to transfer future radar training operations to Keesler Air Force Base in Mississippi. The departure of the air force in would leave Boca Raton Army Airfield essentially abandoned. Florida Atlantic University opened on September 14, , with an initial student body of students in five colleges. The first degree awarded was an honorary doctorate given to President Lyndon B. Johnson on October 25, , at the dedication and opening of the university.
On-campus housing for students was first added in September , when Algonquin Hall opened. Florida Atlantic's history is one of continuing expansion as the university's service population has grown. The university originally served only upper-division and graduate level students, because the state intended the institution "to complement the state's community college system, accepting students who had earned their associate degrees from those institutions.
