William G. Bowen (born October 6, 1933) is President Emeritus of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation where he served as President from 1988 to 2006. He was the president of Princeton University from 1972 to 1988.

William Bowen went to Denison University, where he was initiated into the Sigma Chi fraternity. He graduated from Denison in 1955 and Princeton University in 1958, where he earned a PhD. He joined the Princeton faculty in 1958, specializing in labor economics.

In 1988, he left Princeton and joined The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, where he created a research program to investigate doctoral education, collegiate admissions, independent research libraries, and charitable nonprofits in order to ensure that the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation's grants would be well-informed and more effective.

William Bowen has also been partially responsible for JSTOR, the Mellon International Dunhuang Archive, ARTstor, and Ithaka Harbors, Inc..

Bowen has authored 19 books, including the Grawemeyer Award-winning The Shape of the River: Long-Term Consequences of Considering Race in College and University Admissions (co-authored with Derek Bok). One of his most recent books, Equity and Excellence in American Higher Education (2005), was coauthored with Eugene M. Tobin and Martin A. Kurzweil. Bowen's current research project is a study of graduation rates at public universities in the United States. This research culminated in the book Crossing the Finish Line: Completing College at America's Public Universities that was coauthored with Matthew M. Chingos and Michael S. McPherson.

Duke University President Richard H. Brodhead appointed him and Julius L. Chambers to evaluate the performance of Duke University's administration in handling the 2006 lacrosse team case.