Lincoln University (California)
university in Oakland, California

Lincoln University is a private university in Oakland, California, United States. It enrolls more than 500 students in undergraduate- and graduate-level programs in business administration as well as an English-language program, certificate programs, and bachelor of science programs.
History
Named to honor President Abraham Lincoln, Lincoln University was founded in 1919 and chartered under the laws of California in 1926. The first university officers were Benjamin Franklin Lickey, president, and Edward J. Silver, vice president and educational director. Lickey with his wife Susan had in 1919 founded a law study program in San Francisco for veterans returning after the First World War and other working adults, which offered evening classes to part-time students, while he was working as the western representative of the Law Department of the La Salle Extension University of Chicago which offered degrees through correspondence courses. The program developed into a tutorial center with a broader curriculum. One of its early slogans was "The Shortcut to Success"; it offered "reasonable terms" and a "money-back guarantee".
By 1927 Lincoln University was operating on the Arcade Floor of the Phelan Building on Market Street in San Francisco with Colleges of Law and Commerce and a Department of Special Courses and Coaching, offering both day and evening classes as a co-educational institution.
An advertisement of that year showed Lincoln University offering college courses in law, commerce, foreign trade, and business administration and special courses and coaching in bar examination preparation, advertising, journalism, and public speaking. It also maintained a junior college and high school program, which operated a preparatory school and special preparation for College Board examinations.
The public source identifies “Lincoln University (California)” as university in Oakland, California. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Lincoln, University and California.
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The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6551169. Authority coordinates are 37.805, -122.270. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1919, 1926 and 1927.
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This entry incorporates text from “Lincoln University (California)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.