The university started off in a modest way from an old catering rest house in Akure and moved to a temporary site in Ado-Ekiti where lectures started soon after with 136 students spread in the Faculties of Arts, Science and Social Sciences. During the 1983/84 session, new courses were established to strengthen the existing faculties; these included geology, biology, chemistry, French, Yoruba studies, philosophy, religious studies, political science and psychology. A fourth faculty, the Faculty of Education, was established in 1983/84 session increasing the student population to 724. In the 1985/86 session, the Faculty of Engineering (Civil, Mechanical and Electrical) and a Department of Banking and Finance were established. The Faculty of Law was established during the 1991/92 session and the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences was established in 2001, bringing the Faculties to 8 in total and a student population of 10,000. The student population is now in excess of 25,000 spread across the various academic programmes.