The university traces its origins to the year 1925, when a group of students and academics from
St. John's University in
Shanghai, led by the scholar Zhang Shouyong, left the school following the events of the
May 30th Movement and founded
Kwang Hua University in Shanghai. In 1938, following the outbreak of the
Second Sino-Japanese War and the Japanese advance into mainland China, the university relocated its headquarters to Chengdu. This move was mirrored by other major Chinese universities in the east of China who relocated their operations to western China after the Republic of China moved its capital from
Nanjing to
Chongqing. After the end of
World War II, the university moved back to Shanghai in 1946 and the campus in Chengdu became a branch of Kwang Hua University. That same year, the campus in Chengdu separated from the university and formed a private university called
Chenghua University. Kwang Hua University was later merged with other universities and formed the current
East China Normal University. In 1952, after the foundation of the
People's Republic of China, Chenghua University was merged with schools and departments of business and economics from 16 other universities and colleges and was reformed as the
Sichuan Institute of Finance and Economics. From 1961 to 1978 it was called
Chengdu University. In 1980, the
People's Bank of China took over the administration of the university which it held until the year 2000 when the administration was transferred to the
Ministry of Education. In 1985, during the tenure of the central bank, the university received its current name of Southwestern University of Finance and Economics. Later, in 1995, the university became part of Project 211. In 2011, SWUFE was listed as part of the 985 Innovative Platforms for Key Disciplines Project, which is an extension of
Project 985. In 2017, the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Finance and National Development and Reform Commission released the list of Double First Class Plan universities and that of the Double First Class Plan (short as "Double First Class") development universities and disciplines. SWUFE was included into the list of China's "Double First Class" development university, and applied economics was selected as a "double first class" development discipline. ==Campuses==