University of Hyderabad was established by an act of the Parliament in 1974 as a Central University. It offers courses under distance learning programs. The university is located at GachiBowli which is 20 km from the city of Hyderabad on the old Hyderabad-Bombay highway. The university also has a city campus, "The Golden Threshold", the residence of Sarojini Naidu.

The university is divided into the following schools:
* School of Engineering Sciences and Technology
* School of Medical Sciences
* School of Management Studies
* School of Mathematics and Computer
* School of Physics
* School of Chemistry
* School of Life Sciences
* School of Humanities
* School of Social Sciences
* Sarojini Naidu School of Arts & Communication

The following are "Special Study Centres" that offer degrees in their respective specialties:
* Center for Integrated Studies
* Center for Neural and Cognitive Science
* Center for Study of Social Eclusion and Iclusion
* Center for Buddist`s Studies
* Center for Women & Gender Studies
* Center for Dalith and Backward class literature Studies
* Center for Classical Telugu Studies

School of Life Sciences (SLS) offers Post graduate courses in the major thrust areas of life sciences including Biochemistry, Animal and Plant sciences,Biotechnology and Bioinformatics.

School of Management Studies (SMS) opened in May, 1999 and it offers an AICTE approved two-year full-time residential MBA, MBA Programme and a Ph.D. programme in Management Studies.

The Department of Mathematics and Statistics is a part of the School of Mathematics and Computer/Information sciences, which was established in February 1978. Department of computer and information sciences offers high quality post-graduate teaching and research programmes in all major areas of Computing, Information Science and Artificial Intelligence.

School of Humanities had six Departments and Two Centres. The departments include:
* Department of English
* Department of Philosophy
* Department of Hindi
* Department of Telugu
* Department of Urdu
* Department of Sanskrit Studies
* Centre for Applied Linguistics and Translation Studies
* Centre for Comparative Literature
* English Language Teaching cell

The University has started the 5 year Integrated Program in the year 2005. Through the centre for Neural and Cognitive science it provides M.Phil and PhD programmes. Centre for the Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy provides the opportunities for research programme by the interested students. Sarojini Naidu School of Arts and Communication started functioning from 1988-89 offering Masters-level courses in Dance, Theatre Arts, Painting and Communication and Doctoral (Ph.D.) programmes in Communication, Theatre Arts, and Dance. Department of Communication offers M.A programs in print and new media and Communication studies and PhD programs in communication studies.