Lincoln University in Pennsylvania is a four-year University located on 350 acres in southern Chester County . The University also hosts a Center for Graduate Studies which is located within the City of Philadelphia . Currently, Lincoln University provides undergraduate and graduate coursework to approximately 2,000 students. As Horace Mann Bond noted in his book Education for Freedom (A History of Lincoln University, Pennsylvania), "This was the first institution founded anywhere in the world to provide a higher education in the arts and sciences for youth of African descent." Today, Lincoln University is an institution of higher learning that provides a liberal arts and science-based undergraduate core curriculum and select graduate programs to prepare students of every race and nationality. Lincoln is a " state-related " university, meaning it receives public funds and offers reduced tuition for Pennsylvania residents but is under independent control. Lincoln University has many notable alumni, including Thurgood Marshall , Langston Hughes , Hildrus Poindexter , Horace Mann Bond , Roscoe Lee Browne , Robert L. Carter , Nnamdi Azikiwe , Kwame Nkrumah , and Melvin B. Tolson . Nnamdi Azikiwe and Kwame Nkrumah were the first President/Prime Minister of Nigeria and Ghana respectively, fulfilling John Miller Dickey's vision of Lincoln University as a training institution for African leadership. Lincoln University alumni have held key leadership positions at more than 35 colleges and universities and scores of prominent churches. [ citation needed ] Seven Lincoln alumni founded the following U.S. or foreign universities: South Carolina State University , Livingstone College , Albany State University , Texas Southern University , Ibeme Memorial College, Nigeria, Ibibio State College, Nigeria, and Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology , Ghana. At least 10 of its alumni have served as United States ambassadors or mission chiefs. Many are federal, state and municipal judges, and many others have served as mayors or city managers. The University also hosts a number of successful student activities, including a chorale that performed for Rosa Parks , and a number of other luminaries, at her 77th birthday celebration at the Kennedy Center, and a Track and Field program that has won 17 NCAA Division III Championships. In addition to being geographically close, Lincoln shares historical ties to Princeton University . Isaac Norton Rendall, an early president of Lincoln and alum of Princeton University and its seminary , developed Lincoln's early curriculum based upon his experience at Princeton. The similarities also extend to the official colors of the two universities and their mascots (Lincolns Orange and Blue Lions compared with Princeton's Orange & Black Tigers).