The college was initially founded in 1966 as the Penn State Capitol Campus. This new campus was exclusively for upper division undergraduates and graduate students. The first students graduated from the Capitol College in 1968, with the first on-campus graduation taking place in 1969.

The school gained college status in 1986 and was subsequently renamed as the Pennsylvania State University at Harrisburg—Capital College. Two years later, the college granted its first doctorate degrees.

The college welcomed its first four-year undergraduates in 2001, with its first student housing opening in 2002.^[6] Penn State Harrisburg was considered fully transitioned into a four-year college by 2004.

As a college and graduate school of the Pennsylvania State University, Penn State Harrisburg grants associate, bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees. In addition to the 33 full baccalaureate programs it offers, as one of the 24 campuses of the Penn State, the college also offers the first two years of study leading to more than 160 majors offered throughout the Penn State system. The college also houses 24 master's degree programs, as well as doctoral programs in Adult Education, American Studies, and Public Administration.^[7]

At the transfer level, the college serves students from all Commonwealth campuses of the Pennsylvania State University, as well as students from community colleges and other accredited colleges and universities.

The college also is the academic and administrative home of the Penn State Intercollege Master of Professional Studies Program in Homeland Security (iMPS-HLS), a partnership of six Penn State colleges sponsoring an online graduate degree program delivered by Penn State World Campus.

Penn State Harrisburg's campus is easily accessible via major interstate routes and the Pennsylvania Turnpike at exit 247. Harrisburg International Airport is within one mile (1.6 km) of the campus, and public transportation serves the college. The Penn State Hershey Medical Center and Penn State Dickinson School of Law are also located nearby.

After a 10-year break from intercollegiate athletics, Penn State–Harrisburg brought back the department as of fall of the 2005–06 academic year. In this short amount of time, they have been able to become members of the NCAA's Division III. They formerly competed primarily in the Capital Athletic Conference (CAC), from July, 2013- June, 2019. Penn State–Harrisburg was formerly a member of the North Eastern Athletic Conference (NEAC) from 2007–08 to 2012–13. In July, 2019 PSU-H rejoined the NEAC (currently rebranded as the United East Conference).Penn State–Harrisburg sponsors the following teams: men's and women's basketball, men's and women's cross country, golf, men's and women's soccer, baseball, softball, men's and women's tennis, and women's volleyball.

As a medium-sized academic library with 275,000 volumes, over 1 million pieces of microfilm, 1,430 journal subscriptions, and 300 databases, the Penn State Harrisburg Library was planned from the outset as a "hybrid" print/electronic library that would easily accommodate new technologies without sacrificing the personal warmth of the traditional library. The library is a 115,000-square-foot (10,700 m²) modern facility and officially opened on January 10, 2000, for the start of spring semester.

• Center For Geographic Information Services, provides support for research, education, and outreach efforts requiring the use and analysis of spatial Information. This includes direct assistance to faculty, students, and staff and the development of occasional seminars and workshops on geographic information systems (GIS) software and applications.
• Pennsylvania Center for Folklore, documents, studies, and interprets diverse communities and cultural traditions, especially in Pennsylvania.
• Center for Holocaust and Jewish Studies, organizes research, teaching, and outreach programs on the Holocaust, as well as Jewish life and culture more broadly.
• Center for Survey Research was established to provide professional and technical assistance in survey research methodologies. The CSR serves as a primary resource for state and local government, business, non-profit organizations and public utilities as well as faculty and students who are undertaking opinion research.
• Cooperative Extension Capital Region Office
• Economic Development Research And Training Center
• Institute of State and Regional Affairs
• Eastern American Studies Association
• Pennsylvania Program to Improve State & Local Government
• Pennsylvania State Data Center was established in 1981 by executive order of the governor and is Pennsylvania's official source of population and economic statistics and services. In addition to serving as Pennsylvania's liaison to the Census Bureau, the PSDC also serves as the state's representative to the Federal-State Cooperative Programs for Population Estimates and for Population Projections.
• Center for Signal Integrity supports research and product development for local and national companies in analyzing high-speed electrical interconnects to improve the reliability and performance of digital systems.

The campus is built on the site of the decommissioned Olmsted Air Force Base.

Housing

The main on-campus housing, The Capital Village, is located on the northeast part of the campus. Additional housing is offered down Olmsted Drive; Nittany Apartments^[8] can house up to 260 students in its 4-person apartments.^[9]

Greek Life

The college has several fraternities and sororities.

• Shaun L. Gabbidon
• Simon J. Bronner

• Official website

40°12′20″N 76°44′47″W / 40.205525°N 76.746433°W / 40.205525; -76.746433