Currently, HU has eight Colleges and two Institutes scattered across seven campuses.

The eight colleges are: College of Agriculture (CoA), Wondo Genet College of Forestry and Natural Resources (WGCF-NR), College of Medicine and Health Sciences (CMHS), College of Social Sciences and Humanities (CSSH), College of Business and Economics (CBE), College of Natural and Computational Science (CNCS), College of Law and Governance (CoLG), and College of Education (CoE). Whereas the two institutes of HU are the Institutive of Technology (IoT) and the Institute of Policy and Development Research (IPDR).

HU has seven different campuses. These are: Main Campus, Agriculture Campus Wondo Genet Campus, Medicine and Health Campus, IoT Campus, Awada Campus and Daye Campus. Four of the campuses; Main campus, Medicine and Health Campus, Agriculture, and IoT are found in the town of Hawassa. Whereas the remaining three namely Wondo Genet, Awada and Daye campuses are situated in three separate locations outside of Hawassa. A brief description of each campus is provided as follows: