Following student protests at Rangoon University, Burmese general Ne Win ordered the demolition of the historic students' union building.

The 1962 Rangoon University protests, also known as the 7 July Student Uprising, were a series of marches, demonstrations, and protests against stricter campus regulations, the end of the system of university self-administration, and the policy of the new military regime of General Ne Win. The main events took place in Rangoon, Burma, from 7 to 8 July 1962. On 7 July the military regime violently suppressed a student demonstration at Rangoon University attended by some 5,000 students. This resulted in the deaths of more than one hundred, and the arrest of more than 6,000 students according to unofficial sources. However, official government statements put the death toll at 15. In the morning hours of the next day, the military regime blew up the historic Rangoon University Students' Union (RUSU) building, which had been the symbol of the anti-colonial nationalism struggle since the 1920s.

The University of Yangon, located in Kamayut, Yangon, is the oldest university in Myanmar's modern education system and the best known university in Myanmar. The university offers mainly undergraduate and postgraduate degrees programs in liberal arts, sciences and law. Full-time bachelor's degrees were not offered at the university's main campus after the student protests of 1996. The bachelor's degree was re-offered from 2014 on. Today degrees in Political Science are offered to undergraduate students, as well as postgraduate diplomas in areas such as social work and geology.

Ne Win, born Shu Maung, was a Burmese army general, politician and Prime Minister of Burma from 1958 to 1960 and 1962 to 1974, and also President of Burma from 1962 to 1981. Ne Win was Burma's military dictator during the Socialist Burma period of 1962 to 1988.