The rapid development of higher education has led to the increasingly tense development of land in colleges and universities, the shortage of accommodation and living space resources for teachers and students, and the development and utilization of underground space has gradually become the top priority in the construction of colleges and universities. This paper clarifies the motivation for the development of underground space in colleges and universities, collates the types and development modes of underground space, compiles the characteristics of underground space in colleges and universities both at home and abroad, and analyses it in the case of a college in Southwest China to predict the trend of the development of underground space in colleges and universities campuses. The study shows that: the development of underground space in colleges and universities needs to pay attention to the continuation of the era, emphasise the synergy of the landscape, strengthen the function of a single underground space, improve the depth of space, create an underground complex with the composite function of "learning-living-communicating" , strengthen the connection of multiple points, and take into account the synergy of the whole, and take the underground space of the college campus as a construction whole for planning and designing. A construction whole for planning and design, at the same time, pays attention to the combination of static and dynamic traffic in the development of underground space, to create intelligent underground space, in order to build intensive and high-quality underground space on college campuses. It is only through the construction of intensive and high-quality underground space on college campuses that we can add bricks and mortar to the progress and development of colleges and universities.