An independent Catholic college with a Franciscan spirit, Hilbert encourages personal and organizational change through vision and hope. The college also creates a meaningful, unique undergraduate educational experience based in the liberal arts that enables graduates to positively impact their professions and communities.

Informed by this spirit, the college serves students with challenging and relevant programs that prepare individuals to fulfill meaningful educational, career/professional and personal goals. The opportunities for intellectual, social, cultural, and spiritual growth encourage all members of the college community to develop a respectful attitude toward learning, a reverence toward persons and things, and a desire to fashion their lives and their communities for the better.

Newcomers to Hilbert inevitably ask where our name originates. It's a good place to start because the answer combines both our history and our philosophy.

The college is named after Mother Colette Hilbert, who, in 1897, established the Franciscan Sisters of St. Joseph, which became the college's founding congregation. In 1957, the community founded a teacher training college for its members; in 1969, having broadened its curriculum to include degrees outside of teacher training and expanded its enrollment to include both men and women, the institution officially became known as Hilbert College.

In 1992, Hilbert began to offer four-year degrees for the first time; today, it offers 11 four-year degree programs, including one of only a few Economic Crime Investigation programs in the entire country and the first undergraduate Rehabilitation Services Program in Western New York.

Hilbert's degree programs are registered by the New York State Education Department and the college is accredited by the Commission on Higher Education of the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools, an institutional accrediting agency recognized by the U.S. Secretary of Education and the Commission on Recognition of Postsecondary Accreditation.