The school is the only comprehensive university in the Linyi-Menglong revolutionary old area. Its predecessor was a school of the style of the Chinese Anti-Japanese Military and Political University's First Branch established in 1941 with support from the university. It has gone through stages such as the Binhai Founding College, Linyi First Normal School, Linyi Teacher Training School, Linyi Education College, Linyi Teachers College, and Linyi Normal University. It began to offer undergraduate programs in 1998, was renamed Linyi University by the Ministry of Education in 2010, became a master's degree awarding unit in 2018, and was selected as a provincial-level doctoral degree awarding project construction unit in 2024.