The State University of New York at Binghamton, commonly referred to as Binghamton University and SUNY Binghamton, is a public research university with campuses in Binghamton, Vestal, and Johnson City, New York, United States. It is one of the four university centers in the State University of New York (SUNY) system. As of Fall 2018, 17,768 undergraduate and graduate students attend the university. The Vestal campus is listed as a census-designated place, with a residential population of 6,177 as of the 2010 Census.Since its establishment in 1946, the school has evolved from a small liberal arts college to a large research university that is consistently ranked among the best public universities in the United States. Binghamton University is considered to be one of the "Public Ivies," a publicly funded university considered as providing a quality of education comparable to those of the Ivy League. The university is designated as an R1 Doctoral University with very high research activity according to the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education.Binghamton's athletic teams are known as the Bearcats, and compete in Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). The Bearcats are members of the America East Conference.