The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) is a university in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. It was founded in 1789. UNC is one of three schools that claim to be the oldest public university in the United States. To be more exact, UNC is the first school in the U.S. to hold classes and graduate students as a public institution; it began teaching students in 1795 and graduated its first students in 1798. (The University of Georgia was founded in 1785, but did not start teaching classes until 1801; The College of William & Mary was founded in 1693 and taught students at that time, but did not become a public school until 1906.)