Excelsior University is a private online university in Albany, New York. It offers undergraduate and graduate degrees and comprises three schools: the school of undergraduate studies, the school of graduate studies, and the school of nursing. It serves mostly non-traditional, adult working students through distance education programs.

Excelsior College was founded in 1971 by the New York State Board of Regents as its external degree program, known as The Regents External Degree Program (REX). Its initial development was funded by grants from the Ford Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation. Known as Regents College from 1984 through 2000, it operated as a program of the Board of Regents, which also served as its board of trustees. In April 1998, the Board of Regents granted the school a charter to operate as an independent institution. On January 1, 2001, Regents College became Excelsior College. (Excelsior means "ever upwards" in Latin; it is the motto of the State of New York.) Excelsior College changed its name to Excelsior University on August 1, 2022.

Regents College was from its inception a college that had faculty, majors, academic requirements, and advisors, but no courses. Instead, it provided students a framework for having academic credits earned elsewhere evaluated and assembled into a degree program. Regents College also provided a way to earn credits through its Regents College Examinations. For some subjects Regents College referred students to regionally-accredited colleges which provided instruction, accessible from the student's location whenever possible.

Regents College obtained regional accreditation with little difficulty. However students did not qualify for Federal Student Aid, which funded instruction, not advising and evaluation students. Starting with its first graduate program, a Master of Arts in Liberal Studies that began in 1998, Regents College began adding distance learning courses through digital means, such as DVDs.

Since Regents College was designed to consolidate credit from other universities, any transfer credit from an accredited institution was accepted if it fell within one of college's degree programs and was earned within an allowable time limit.

Known as Excelsior College beginning in 1998, and Excelsior University since 2022, the school is well known for its flexible, online degree programs.

Sources of college credit that can be used towards an Excelsior degree program include Excelsior distance learning courses, courses from other accredited institutions, college-level subject-matter examinations (including CLEP exams, and DSST/DANTES exams), non-collegiate training (including corporate, governmental, and military training) that has been evaluated for college-level credit by the American Council on Education (ACE) and National College Credit Recommendation Service (NCCRS), and assessments of prior learning portfolios.

Excelsior is a member of the Servicemembers Opportunity Colleges (SOC) Consortium of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities.

Excelsior University is regionally accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education. Its bachelor's and master's nursing programs are accredited by the Accreditation Commission for Education in Nursing, Inc. (ACEN). The School of Nursing has twice been designated a Center of Excellence in Nursing Education by the National League for Nursing. Its bachelor's degree programs in electrical engineering technology, information technology, and nuclear engineering technology are accredited by the Technology Accreditation Commission of ABET, Inc. The bachelor's and master's degree programs in business are accredited by the International Assembly for Collegiate Business Education (IACBE).