Tarim University, originally named Tarim University of Agricultural Reclamation, was founded in1958. General Wangzhen — the late vice chairman of China — was honorary president of the university. It is among the first batch of universities that were entitled to award bachelors' degrees. In 2003, it was authorized to confer masters' degrees. In May 2004, the university was renamed Tarim University approved by the Ministry of Education. The central government and Xinjiang production and construction group contribute jointly to building the university.

After almost half a century, the education style of diligence, unity, truth pursuit and striving comes into being. Tarim University has formed a multi-disciplinary education system. Agriculture is a dominant field, and arts, laws, sciences, industry, economics and management as supplements. The university campus, covering an area of 2,500mu, lies on the north bank of Tarim River in Alar city. The buildings have a total floor space of 250,000 square meters. There are 816 faculty and staff members, with 426 full-time teachers, 108 professors and associate professors.110 teachers have master or doctor degrees. Its 10,000 students include not only undergraduate and postgraduate but also students of 2-year programs and adult education. The university's library has a collection of 600,000 volumes and 1,200 kinds of periodicals. Journal of Tarim University is issued at home and abroad.

Tarim University comprises eight schools and colleges, offering 26 specialties for undergraduates and 2 specialties leading to master degrees. It has 24 laboratories, and one of them is a key laboratory of the province. There are 4 key disciplines at provincial level and 20 bases for teaching and research. A training center for cadres in South Xinjing and a research institute of bio-tech were established respectively. In recent years, the university undertook over 300 kinds of scientific projects, of which 130 are provincial ones. Other achievements include: 3 national natural science funds, 55 awards for scientific and technology progress, 3,000 academic papers, 56 monographs and textbooks, etc. Tarim University pays great attention to collaborations and academic exchanges with other universities and research institutions. At the same time, the university is actively involved in local economic construction so as to enable the science and technology to serve the production directly . Since its founding , over 20,000 qualified personnel were trained in the university. Statistics indicate that the employment rate of Tarim University ranked top three in recent three years.