In 1976 the Brighton College of Education (the teacher training college) merges with Brighton Polytechnic, giving the polytechnic a campus at Falmer. It had opened in 1909 as the Municipal Day Training College in Richmond Terrace, Brighton. There was a further merger in 1979, when the East Sussex College of Higher Education merged with the polytechnic, creating a campus in Eastbourne. That institution had opened in London in 1898 as an institution training women and girls in physical education and moved to Eastbourne in 1949.
The polytechnics were granted university status in 1992 and the polytechnic became the University of Brighton under the provisions of the Further and Higher Education Act, 1992.
In 1994 the Sussex and Kent Institute of Nursing and Midwifery became part of the university, increasing the number of students based in Eastbourne. In 2003 the Brighton and Sussex Medical School opened as a partnership between the University of Brighton, the University of Sussex and the Universities Hospitals Trust, the first medical school in South East England outside London. University Centre Hastings is opened in 2004, managed by the University of Brighton
In 2011 the Brighton International College, part of Kaplan International Colleges, opened on the Brighton campus, to provide international students with English language courses and preparatory academic tuition for undergraduate and postgraduate courses.