Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a private

Ivy League The Ivy League is an American collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference of eight Private university, private Research university, research universities in the Northeastern United States. It participates in the National Collegia ...

research university A research university or a research-intensive university is a university that is committed to research as a central part of its mission. They are "the key sites of Knowledge production modes, knowledge production", along with "intergenerational ...

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

, it is the oldest institution of higher education in New York and the fifth- oldest in the United States. Columbia was established as a colonial college by

royal charter A royal charter is a formal grant issued by a monarch under royal prerogative as letters patent. Historically, they have been used to promulgate public laws, the most famous example being the English Magna Carta (great charter) of 1215, but ...

under

George II of Great Britain George II (George Augustus; ; 30 October / 9 November 1683 – 25 October 1760) was King of Great Britain and King of Ireland, Ireland, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg (Electorate of Hanover, Hanover) and a prince-elector of the Holy Roman Em ...

. It was renamed Columbia College in 1784 following the

American Revolution The American Revolution (1765–1783) was a colonial rebellion and war of independence in which the Thirteen Colonies broke from British America, British rule to form the United States of America. The revolution culminated in the American ...

, and in 1787 was placed under a private board of trustees headed by former students

Alexander Hamilton Alexander Hamilton (January 11, 1755 or 1757July 12, 1804) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the first U.S. secretary of the treasury from 1789 to 1795 dur ...

and

John Jay John Jay (, 1745 – May 17, 1829) was an American statesman, diplomat, signatory of the Treaty of Paris (1783), Treaty of Paris, and a Founding Father of the United States. He served from 1789 to 1795 as the first chief justice of the United ...

. In 1896, the campus was moved to its current location in

Morningside Heights Morningside Heights is a neighborhood on the West Side of Upper Manhattan in New York City. It is bounded by Morningside Drive to the east, 125th Street to the north, 110th Street to the south, and Riverside Drive to the west. Morningsi ...

and renamed Columbia University. Columbia is organized into twenty schools, including four undergraduate schools and 16 graduate schools. The university's research efforts include the

Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory The Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO) is a research, research institution specializing in the Earth science and climate change. Though part of Columbia University, it is located on a separate closed campus in Palisades, New York. The obs ...

, the

Goddard Institute for Space Studies The Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) is a laboratory in the Earth Sciences Division of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center affiliated with the Columbia University Earth Institute. The institute is located at Columbia University in Ne ...

, and accelerator laboratories with

Big Tech Big Tech, also referred to as the Tech Giants or Tech Titans, is a collective term for the largest and most influential technology companies in the world. The label draws a parallel to similar classifications in other industries, such as "Big Oi ...

firms such as

Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon (company), an American multinational technology company * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek myth ...

and

IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...

. Columbia is a founding member of the

Association of American Universities The Association of American Universities (AAU) is an organization of predominantly American research universities devoted to maintaining a strong system of academic research and education. Founded in 1900, it consists of 69 public and private ...

and was the first school in the United States to grant the MD degree. The university also administers and annually awards the

Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prizes () are 23 annual awards given by Columbia University in New York City for achievements in the United States in "journalism, arts and letters". They were established in 1917 by the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made his fo ...

. Columbia scientists and scholars have played a pivotal role in scientific breakthroughs including

brain–computer interface A brain–computer interface (BCI), sometimes called a brain–machine interface (BMI), is a direct communication link between the brain's electrical activity and an external device, most commonly a computer or robotic limb. BCIs are often dire ...

; the

laser A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation. The word ''laser'' originated as an acronym for light amplification by stimulated emission of radi ...

and maser;

nuclear magnetic resonance Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) is a physical phenomenon in which nuclei in a strong constant magnetic field are disturbed by a weak oscillating magnetic field (in the near field) and respond by producing an electromagnetic signal with a ...

; the first nuclear pile; the first

nuclear fission Nuclear fission is a reaction in which the nucleus of an atom splits into two or more smaller nuclei. The fission process often produces gamma photons, and releases a very large amount of energy even by the energetic standards of radioactiv ...

reaction in the

Americas The Americas, sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North America and South America.''Webster's New World College Dictionary'', 2010 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Cleveland, Ohio. When viewed as a sing ...

; the first evidence for

plate tectonics Plate tectonics (, ) is the scientific theory that the Earth's lithosphere comprises a number of large tectonic plates, which have been slowly moving since 3–4 billion years ago. The model builds on the concept of , an idea developed durin ...

and

continental drift Continental drift is a highly supported scientific theory, originating in the early 20th century, that Earth's continents move or drift relative to each other over geologic time. The theory of continental drift has since been validated and inc ...

; and much of the initial research and planning for the

Manhattan Project The Manhattan Project was a research and development program undertaken during World War II to produce the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States in collaboration with the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. , its alumni, faculty, and staff have included 7 of the Founding Fathers of the United States of America; 4 U.S. presidents; 34 foreign heads of state or government; 2 secretaries-general of the United Nations; 10 justices of the

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that turn on question ...

; 103 Nobel laureates; 125

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the ...

members; 53 living billionaires; 23 Olympic medalists; 33

Academy Award The Academy Awards, commonly known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit in film. They are presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) in the United States in recognition of excellence ...

winners; and 125 Pulitzer Prize recipients.

History

18th century

Discussions regarding the founding of a college in the

Province of New York The Province of New York was a British proprietary colony and later a royal colony on the northeast coast of North America from 1664 to 1783. It extended from Long Island on the Atlantic, up the Hudson River and Mohawk River valleys to ...

began as early as 1704. Classes were initially held in July 1754 and were presided over by the college's first president,

Samuel Johnson Samuel Johnson ( – 13 December 1784), often called Dr Johnson, was an English writer who made lasting contributions as a poet, playwright, essayist, moralist, literary critic, sermonist, biographer, editor, and lexicographer. The ''Oxford ...

who was an Anglican Priest. The college was officially founded on October 31, 1754, as King's College by royal charter of George II, making it the oldest institution of higher learning in the

State of New York New York, also called New York State, is a state in the northeastern United States. Bordered by New England to the east, Canada to the north, and Pennsylvania and New Jersey to the south, its territory extends into both the Atlantic Ocean and ...

and the fifth oldest in the United States. In 1763, Johnson was succeeded in the presidency by Myles Cooper, a graduate of

The Queen's College, Oxford The Queen's College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford, England. The college was founded in 1341 by Robert de Eglesfield in honour of Philippa of Hainault, queen of England. It is distinguished by its predominantly neoclassi ...

, and an ardent

Tory A Tory () is an individual who supports a political philosophy known as Toryism, based on a British version of traditionalist conservatism which upholds the established social order as it has evolved through the history of Great Britain. The To ...

. In the charged political climate of the

, his chief opponent in discussions at the college was an undergraduate of the class of 1777,

. The Irish anatomist, Samuel Clossy, was appointed professor of natural philosophy in October 1765 and later the college's first professor of anatomy in 1767. Columbia1790

The

American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was the armed conflict that comprised the final eight years of the broader American Revolution, in which Am ...

broke out in 1776, and was catastrophic for the operation of King's College, which suspended instruction for eight years beginning in 1776 with the arrival of the

Continental Army The Continental Army was the army of the United Colonies representing the Thirteen Colonies and later the United States during the American Revolutionary War. It was formed on June 14, 1775, by a resolution passed by the Second Continental Co ...

. The suspension continued through the military occupation of New York City by British troops until their departure in 1783. The college's library was looted and its sole building requisitioned for use as a military hospital first by American and then British forces. Columbia1797

The legislature agreed to assist the college, and on May 1, 1784, it passed "an Act for granting certain privileges to the College heretofore called King's College". The Act created a board of regents to oversee the resuscitation of King's College, and, in an effort to demonstrate its support for the new Republic, the legislature stipulated that "the College within the City of New York heretofore called King's College be forever hereafter called and known by the name of Columbia College", a reference to Columbia, an alternative name for America which in turn comes from the name of

Christopher Columbus Christopher Columbus (; between 25 August and 31 October 1451 – 20 May 1506) was an Italians, Italian explorer and navigator from the Republic of Genoa who completed Voyages of Christopher Columbus, four Spanish-based voyages across the At ...

. The Regents finally became aware of the college's defective constitution in February 1787 and appointed a revision committee, which was headed by

and Alexander Hamilton. In April of that same year, a new charter was adopted for the college granted the power to a separate board of 24 trustees.Moore, Nathanal Fischer (1846). ''A Historical Sketch of Columbia''. New York, New York: Columbia University Press. For a period in the 1790s, with New York City as the federal and state capital and the country under successive

Federalist The term ''federalist'' describes several political beliefs around the world. It may also refer to the concept of parties, whose members or supporters call themselves ''Federalists''. History Europe federation In Europe, proponents of deep ...

governments, a revived Columbia thrived under the auspices of Federalists such as Hamilton and Jay. President

George Washington George Washington (, 1799) was a Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father and the first president of the United States, serving from 1789 to 1797. As commander of the Continental Army, Washington led Patriot (American Revoluti ...

and Vice President

John Adams John Adams (October 30, 1735 – July 4, 1826) was a Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father and the second president of the United States from 1797 to 1801. Before Presidency of John Adams, his presidency, he was a leader of ...

, in addition to both houses of

Congress A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ...

attended the college's commencement on May 6, 1789, as a tribute of honor to the many alumni of the school who had been involved in the

19th century

In November 1813, the college agreed to incorporate its medical school with The College of Physicians and Surgeons, a new school created by the Regents of New York, forming

Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons The Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons (officially known as Columbia University Roy and Diana Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons) is the medical school of Columbia University, located at the Columbia University Irvin ...

. In 1857, the college moved from the King's College campus at Park Place to a primarily

Gothic Revival Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic or neo-Gothic) is an Architectural style, architectural movement that after a gradual build-up beginning in the second half of the 17th century became a widespread movement in the first half ...

campus on 49th Street and

Madison Avenue Madison Avenue is a north-south avenue in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, New York, that carries northbound one-way traffic. It runs from Madison Square (at 23rd Street) to meet the southbound Harlem River Drive at 142nd Stree ...

, where it remained for the next forty years. During the last half of the 19th century, under the presidency of Frederick A. P. Barnard, for whom

Barnard College Barnard College is a Private college, private Women's colleges in the United States, women's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college affiliated with Columbia University in New York City. It was founded in 1889 by a grou ...

is named, the institution rapidly assumed the shape of a modern university. Barnard College was created in 1889 as a response to the university's refusal to accept women. In 1896, university president Seth Low moved the campus from 49th Street to its present location, a more spacious campus in the developing neighborhood of

. Under the leadership of Low's successor,

Nicholas Murray Butler Nicholas Murray Butler (April 2, 1862 – December 7, 1947) was an American philosopher, diplomat, and educator. Butler was president of Columbia University, president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a recipient of the Nobel ...

, who served for over four decades, Columbia rapidly became the nation's major institution for research, setting the multiversity model that later universities would adopt. Prior to becoming the president of Columbia University, Butler founded Teachers College, as a school to prepare home economists and manual art teachers for the children of the poor, with philanthropist Grace Hoadley Dodge. Teachers College is currently affiliated as the university's Graduate School of Education.

20th century

In the 1940s, faculty members, including John R. Dunning, I. I. Rabi,

Enrico Fermi Enrico Fermi (; 29 September 1901 – 28 November 1954) was an Italian and naturalized American physicist, renowned for being the creator of the world's first artificial nuclear reactor, the Chicago Pile-1, and a member of the Manhattan Project ...

, and Polykarp Kusch, began what became the

, creating the first nuclear fission reactor in the

and researching gaseous diffusion. In 1928, Seth Low Junior College was established by Columbia University in order to mitigate the number of Jewish applicants to Columbia College. The college was closed in 1936 due to the adverse effects of the

Great Depression The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...

and its students were subsequently taught at Morningside Heights, although they did not belong to any college but to the university at large. There was an evening school called University Extension, which taught night classes, for a fee, to anyone willing to attend. In 1947, the program was reorganized as an undergraduate college and designated the School of General Studies in response to the return of GIs after

. In 1995, the School of General Studies was again reorganized as a full-fledged liberal arts college for non-traditional students (those who have had an academic break of one year or more, or are pursuing dual-degrees) and was fully integrated into Columbia's traditional undergraduate curriculum. The same year, the Division of Special Programs, later called the School of Continuing Education and now the School of Professional Studies, was established to reprise the former role of University Extension. While the School of Professional Studies only offered non-degree programs for lifelong learners and high school students in its earliest stages, it now offers degree programs in a diverse range of professional and inter-disciplinary fields. In the aftermath of World War II, the discipline of international relations became a major scholarly focus of the university, and in response, the

School of International and Public Affairs The School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) is the List of schools of international relations in the United States, international affairs and public policy school, public policy school of Columbia University, a private Ivy League univers ...

was founded in 1946, drawing upon the resources of the faculties of political science, economics, and history. The Columbia University Bicentennial was celebrated in 1954. During the 1960s, student activism reached a climax with protests in the spring of 1968, when hundreds of students occupied buildings on campus. The incident forced the resignation of Columbia's president, Grayson Kirk, and the establishment of the University Senate. Though several schools in the university had admitted women for years, Columbia College first admitted women in the fall of 1983, after a decade of failed negotiations with

, the all-female institution affiliated with the university, to merge the two schools. Barnard College still remains affiliated with Columbia, and all Barnard graduates are issued diplomas signed by the presidents of Columbia University and Barnard College. During the late 20th century, the university underwent significant academic, structural, and administrative changes as it developed into a major research university. For much of the 19th century, the university consisted of decentralized and separate faculties specializing in Political Science, Philosophy, and Pure Science. In 1979, these faculties were merged into the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. In 1991, the faculties of Columbia College, the School of General Studies, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, the School of the Arts, and the School of Professional Studies were merged into the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, leading to the academic integration and centralized governance of these schools.

21st century

Bollinger presidency (2002–2023): Expansion, campaign, and globalization

Lee C. Bollinger became Columbia's 19th president in June 2002, succeeding George Rupp. Appointed in October 2001 after arriving from the University of Michigan, his presidency emphasized campus expansion, globalization, and science, while navigating national debates. Key initiatives included the ambitious Manhattanville campus expansion into West Harlem, addressing critical space needs and aiming to build new academic facilities, especially for sciences. Bollinger prioritized

globalization Globalization is the process of increasing interdependence and integration among the economies, markets, societies, and cultures of different countries worldwide. This is made possible by the reduction of barriers to international trade, th ...

, launching the World Leaders Forum and aiming to increase international student numbers. He appointed key leaders like Jeffrey Sachs ( Earth Institute), Alan Brinkley (Provost), Nicholas Lemann (Journalism), David Hirsch (Research), and Nicholas Dirks (Arts & Sciences), and planned a Neuroscience Institute. Bollinger was the defendant in the Supreme Court's 2003 affirmative action cases (''Gratz'' and ''Grutter''), resulting in a split decision. He consistently defended free speech principles during campus controversies involving faculty and students. The Manhattanville expansion plan progressed, entering environmental review and the city's land-use review process. Concerns about eminent domain grew [with Bollinger calling its potential use necessary to secure land for projects like the Greene Science Center, funded by a landmark $200 million gift. The university publicly launched a record $4 billion capital campaign in September 2006. Financial aid was improved, eliminating loans for undergraduates from families earning under $50,000, supported by a major gift from trustee Gerry Lenfest. Globalization efforts continued with the World Leaders Forum and the creation of the Committee on Global Thought, chaired by Joseph Stiglitz. Columbia faculty received multiple Nobel Prizes:

Richard Axel Richard Axel (born July 2, 1946) is an American molecular biologist and university professor in the Department of Neuroscience at Columbia University and investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. His work on the olfactory system won h ...

and Linda Buck (Medicine, 2004), Edmund Phelps (Economics, 2006), and

Orhan Pamuk Ferit Orhan Pamuk (born 7 June 1952; ) is a Turkish novelist, screenwriter, academic, and recipient of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature. One of Turkey's most prominent novelists, he has sold over 13 million books in 63 languages, making him ...

(Literature, 2006).

Václav Havel Václav Havel (; 5 October 193618 December 2011) was a Czech statesman, author, poet, playwright, and dissident. Havel served as the last List of presidents of Czechoslovakia, president of Czechoslovakia from 1989 until 1992, prior to the dissol ...

joined the faculty. Controversy erupted over a planned 2006 invitation to Iranian President Ahmadinejad, which was ultimately canceled due to logistical and security issues. Later that year, a campus event featuring Minuteman Project speakers was disrupted by protesters. Bollinger strongly condemned the disruption, reaffirming free speech principles while stating protesters do not have the right to silence speakers. Several students faced disciplinary action, and non-affiliated individuals involved were banned from campus. The

2008 financial crisis The 2008 financial crisis, also known as the global financial crisis (GFC), was a major worldwide financial crisis centered in the United States. The causes of the 2008 crisis included excessive speculation on housing values by both homeowners ...

impacted Columbia's endowment, but less than peers as only 13% of the operating budget reliant on the endowment (compared to higher percentages at peers like

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher lear ...

). The endowment recovered, hitting $8.2B in Oct 2013. Despite the downturn, Columbia pressed on with Manhattanville construction, receiving final state approval in June 2009. Major gifts fueled progress, including $400M from John Kluge upon his death, $50M from the Vagelos family for the Medical Center, $100M from

Henry Kravis Henry Roberts Kravis (born January 6, 1944) is an American businessman, investor, and philanthropist.Mortimer Zuckerman for the Mind, Brain, Behavior Institute. Following the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," the University Senate voted 51–17 to invite ROTC back after a 40-year absence, and Bollinger announced an agreement with the Navy. Columbia expanded its Global Centers network (Amman, Beijing, Mumbai, Paris, Nairobi, Istanbul, Santiago), aiming to increase global engagement and international student enrollment (11% in CC in 2011, targeted higher). From 2014 to 2021, Columbia University pursued significant physical expansion, notably opening major facilities on the Manhattanville campus (ZMBBI, Lenfest Center, The Forum). Key strategic initiatives launched included the Knight First Amendment Institute, Columbia World Projects, and the new Columbia Climate School (2020). A $5 billion university capital campaign was launched (with a $1.5B A&S target), major gifts like $50M for A&S's Uris Hall renovation were secured, and the endowment grew significantly ($14.35B by mid-2021). Columbia gynecologist Robert Hadden, indicted in 2014 for sexually assaulting patients and initially avoiding prison through a controversial plea deal amidst criticism of the university's handling, was ultimately federally convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2023. The COVID-19 pandemic starting March 2020 prompted remote operations, hiring/salary freezes, budget cuts, substantial borrowing (~$700M cited), and unpopular retirement contribution cuts, intensifying financial pressures. In 2022, Columbia's reporting of metrics used for university ranking was criticized by Professor of Mathematics Michael Thaddeus, who argued key data supporting the ranking was "inaccurate, dubious or highly misleading." Subsequently, ''U.S. News & World Report'' "unranked" Columbia from its 2022 list of Best Colleges saying that it could not verify the data submitted by the university. In June 2023, Columbia University announced their undergraduate schools would no longer participate in ''U.S. News & World Report's'' rankings, following the lead of its law, medical and nursing schools. A press release cited concerns that such rankings unduly influence applicants and "distill a university's profile into a composite of data categories."

Shafik presidency (2023–2024)

Beginning in fall 2023, escalating Columbia protests over the Gaza war, marked by debates on

antisemitism Antisemitism or Jew-hatred is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who harbours it is called an antisemite. Whether antisemitism is considered a form of racism depends on the school of thought. Antisemi ...

, culminated in a major encampment, the police clearing of Hamilton Hall in April 2024, and President

Minouche Shafik Nemat Talaat Shafik, Baroness Shafik (born 13 August 1962), commonly known as Minouche Shafik, is a British-American academic and economist. She served as the president and vice chancellor of the London School of Economics from 2017 to 2023, a ...

's subsequent resignation. Shafik was replaced by Katrina Armstrong as Acting President.

2025

Following critical reports on

, campus conflict continued into 2025 as the second Trump administration threatened to revoke federal funding and demanded policy changes, prompting student expulsions, arrests of Palestinian students and alumni, and new university disciplinary measures. On March 21, 2025, university leaders agreed to the government's demands to "overhaul disciplinary processes, ban masks at protests, add 36 officers with the authority to make arrests and appoint a new senior vice provost to oversee academic programs focused on the Middle East" among other demands. The university's capitulation has not resulted in the withheld $400 million being restored. On March 28, 2025,

Claire Shipman Claire Shipman (born October 4, 1962) is an American television journalist and the former senior national correspondent for American Broadcasting Company, ABC's ''Good Morning America''. Shipman is acting as President of Columbia University, pre ...

was named new Acting President.

Campus

Morningside Heights

The majority of Columbia's graduate and undergraduate studies are conducted in the Upper Manhattan neighborhood of

on Seth Low's late-19th century vision of a university campus where all disciplines could be taught at one location. The campus was designed along Beaux-Arts planning principles by the architects

McKim, Mead & White McKim, Mead & White was an American architectural firm based in New York City. The firm came to define architectural practice, urbanism, and the ideals of the American Renaissance in ''fin de siècle'' New York. The firm's founding partners, Cha ...

. Columbia's main campus occupies more than six

city block A city block, residential block, urban block, or simply block is a central element of urban planning and urban design. In a city with a grid system, the block is the smallest group of buildings that is surrounded by streets. City blocks are th ...

s, or , in Morningside Heights, New York City, a neighborhood that contains a number of academic institutions. The university owns over 7,800 apartments in Morningside Heights, housing faculty, graduate students, and staff. Almost two dozen undergraduate dormitories (purpose-built or converted) are located on campus or in Morningside Heights. Columbia University has an extensive tunnel system, more than a century old, with the oldest portions predating the present campus. Some of these remain accessible to the public, while others have been cordoned off. Butler_Library_-_1000px_-_AC

Butler Library is the largest in the

Columbia University Libraries Columbia University Libraries is the library system of Columbia University and one of the largest academic library systems in North America. With 15.0 million volumes and over 160,000 journals and serials, as well as extensive electronic resources ...

system and one of the largest buildings on the campus. It was completed in 1934 and renamed to Butler Library in 1946. , Columbia's library system includes over 15.0 million volumes, making it the eighth largest library system and fifth largest collegiate library system in the United States. Several buildings on the Morningside Heights campus are listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

. Low Memorial Library, a

National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a National Register of Historic Places property types, building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the Federal government of the United States, United States government f ...

and the centerpiece of the campus, is listed for its architectural significance. Philosophy Hall is listed as the site of the invention of

FM radio FM broadcasting is a method of radio broadcasting that uses frequency modulation (FM) of the radio broadcast carrier wave. Invented in 1933 by American engineer Edwin Armstrong, wide-band FM is used worldwide to transmit high fidelity, high-f ...

. Also listed is Pupin Hall, another

, which houses the physics and astronomy departments. Here the first experiments on the fission of uranium were conducted by

. The uranium atom was split there ten days after the world's first atom-splitting in

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a population of 1.4 million in the Urban area of Copenhagen, urban area. The city is situated on the islands of Zealand and Amager, separated from Malmö, Sweden, by the ...

, Denmark. Other buildings listed include Casa Italiana, the Delta Psi, Alpha Chapter building of

St. Anthony Hall St. Anthony Hall or the Fraternity of Delta Psi is an American fraternity and literary society. Its first chapter was founded at Columbia University on , the feast day of Saint Anthony the Great. The fraternity is a non–religious, nonsectar ...

, Earl Hall, and the buildings of the affiliated Union Theological Seminary. Union_Theological_Seminary_NYC_001_002_combined

A statue by sculptor

Daniel Chester French Daniel Chester French (April 20, 1850 – October 7, 1931) was an American sculpture, sculptor in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His works include ''The Minute Man'', an 1874 statue in Concord, Massachusetts, and his Statue of Abr ...

called '' Alma Mater'' is centered on the front steps of Low Memorial Library. The statue represents a personification of the traditional image of the university as an '' alma mater'', or "nourishing mother", draped in an academic gown and seated on a throne. She wears a

laurel wreath A laurel wreath is a symbol of triumph, a wreath (attire), wreath made of connected branches and leaves of the bay laurel (), an aromatic broadleaf evergreen. It was also later made from spineless butcher's broom (''Ruscus hypoglossum'') or cher ...

on her head and holds in her right hand a scepter capped by a King's Crown, a traditional symbol of the university. A book, representing learning, rests on her lap. The arms of her throne end in lamps, representing "Sapientia et Doctrina", or "Wisdom and Learning"; on the back of the throne is embossed an image of the seal of the university. The small hidden owl on the sculpture is also the subject of many Columbia legends, the main legend being that the first student in the freshmen class to find the hidden owl on the statue will be valedictorian, and that any subsequent Columbia male who finds it will marry a Barnard student, given that Barnard is a

women's college Women's colleges in higher education are undergraduate, bachelor's degree-granting institutions, often liberal arts colleges, whose student populations are composed exclusively or almost exclusively of women. Some women's colleges admit male st ...

. "The Steps", alternatively known as "Low Steps" or the "Urban Beach", are a popular meeting area for Columbia students. The term refers to the long series of granite steps leading from the lower part of campus (South Field) to its upper terrace.

Other campuses

Columbia_University_College_of_Physicians_and_Surgeons_entrance

In April 2007, the university purchased more than two-thirds of a site for a new campus in

Manhattanville Manhattanville (also known as West Harlem or West Central Harlem, after its location near Harlem) is a neighborhood in the New York City borough (New York City), borough of Manhattan. It is bordered on the north by 135th Street (Manhattan), 13 ...

, an industrial neighborhood to the north of the Morningside Heights campus. Stretching from 125th Street to 133rd Street, Columbia Manhattanville houses buildings for Columbia's Business School, School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia School of the Arts, and the Jerome L. Greene Center for Mind, Brain, and Behavior, where research will occur on neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. The $7 billion expansion plan included demolishing all buildings, except three that are historically significant (the Studebaker Building, Prentis Hall, and the Nash Building), eliminating the existing light industry and storage warehouses, and relocating tenants in 132 apartments. Replacing these buildings created of space for the university. Community activist groups in West Harlem fought the expansion for reasons ranging from property protection and fair exchange for land, to residents' rights. Subsequent public hearings drew neighborhood opposition. , the State of New York's Empire State Development Corporation approved use of eminent domain, which, through declaration of Manhattanville's "blighted" status, gives governmental bodies the right to appropriate private property for public use. On May 20, 2009, the New York State Public Authorities Control Board approved the Manhanttanville expansion plan. NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital is affiliated with the medical schools of both Columbia University and

Cornell University Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...

. According to ''U.S. News & World Report''s "2020–21 Best Hospitals Honor Roll and Medical Specialties Rankings", it is ranked fourth overall and second among university hospitals. Columbia's

medical school A medical school is a tertiary educational institution, professional school, or forms a part of such an institution, that teaches medicine, and awards a professional degree for physicians. Such medical degrees include the Bachelor of Medicine, ...

has a strategic partnership with New York State Psychiatric Institute, and is affiliated with 19 other hospitals in the U.S. and four hospitals in other countries. Health-related schools are located at the Columbia University Medical Center, a campus located in the neighborhood of Washington Heights, fifty blocks uptown. Other teaching hospitals affiliated with Columbia through the NewYork-Presbyterian network include the Payne Whitney Clinic in Manhattan, and the Payne Whitney Westchester, a psychiatric institute located in White Plains, New York. On the northern tip of Manhattan island (in the neighborhood of Inwood), Columbia owns the Baker Field, which includes the Lawrence A. Wien Stadium as well as facilities for field sports, outdoor track, and tennis. There is a third campus on the west bank of the

Hudson River The Hudson River, historically the North River, is a river that flows from north to south largely through eastern New York (state), New York state. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains at Henderson Lake (New York), Henderson Lake in the ...

, the

and Earth Institute in Palisades, New York. A fourth is the Nevis Laboratories in Irvington, New York, for the study of particle and motion physics. A satellite site in Paris holds classes at Reid Hall.

Sustainability

In 2006, the university established the Office of Environmental Stewardship to initiate, coordinate and implement programs to reduce the university's environmental footprint. The U.S. Green Building Council selected the university's Manhattanville plan for the

Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) is a Green building certification systems, green building certification program used worldwide. Developed by the non-profit U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), it includes a set of rating ...

(LEED) Neighborhood Design pilot program. Columbia has been rated "B+" by the 2011 College Sustainability Report Card for its environmental and sustainability initiatives. 116th_Street_Columbia_University_Station

116th_Street_Columbia_University_Station

According to the A. W. Kuchler U.S. potential natural vegetation types, Columbia University would have a dominant vegetation type of Appalachian

Oak An oak is a hardwood tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' of the beech family. They have spirally arranged leaves, often with lobed edges, and a nut called an acorn, borne within a cup. The genus is widely distributed in the Northern Hemisp ...

(''104'') with a dominant vegetation form of Eastern

Hardwood Hardwood is wood from Flowering plant, angiosperm trees. These are usually found in broad-leaved temperate and tropical forests. In temperate and boreal ecosystem, boreal latitudes they are mostly deciduous, but in tropics and subtropics mostl ...

Forest (''25'').

Transportation

Columbia Transportation is the bus service of the university, operated by Academy Bus Lines. The buses are open to all Columbia faculty, students, Dodge Fitness Center members, and anyone else who holds a Columbia ID card. In addition, all TSC students can ride the buses. In the

New York City Subway The New York City Subway is a rapid transit system in New York City serving the New York City boroughs, boroughs of Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx. It is owned by the government of New York City and leased to the New York City Tr ...

, the train serves the university at 116th Street-Columbia University. The buses stop on Broadway while the stops on Amsterdam Avenue. The main campus is primarily boxed off by the streets of Amsterdam Avenue, Broadway, 114th street, and 120th street, with some buildings, including Barnard College, located just outside the area. The nearest major highway is the Henry Hudson Parkway ( NY 9A) to the west of the campus. It is located south of the

George Washington Bridge The George Washington Bridge is a double-decked suspension bridge spanning the Hudson River, connecting Fort Lee in Bergen County, New Jersey, with the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. It is named after George W ...

Academics

Undergraduate admissions and financial aid

Columbia University received 60,551 applications for the class of 2025 (entering 2021) and a total of around 2,218 were admitted to the two schools for an overall acceptance rate of 3.66%. Columbia is a racially diverse school, with approximately 52% of all students identifying themselves as persons of color. Additionally, 50% of all undergraduates received grants from Columbia. The average grant size awarded to these students is $46,516. In 2015–2016, annual undergraduate tuition at Columbia was $50,526 with a total cost of attendance of $65,860 (including room and board). The college is need-blind for domestic applicants. On April 11, 2007, Columbia University announced a $400 million donation from media billionaire alumnus John Kluge to be used exclusively for undergraduate financial aid. The donation is among the largest single gifts to higher education. However, this does not apply to international students, transfer students, visiting students, or students in the School of General Studies. In the fall of 2010, admission to Columbia's undergraduate colleges Columbia College and the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science (also known as SEAS or Columbia Engineering) began accepting the

Common Application The Common Application (more commonly known as the Common App) is an undergraduate college admission application that applicants may use to apply to over 1,000 member colleges and universities in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia, ...

. The policy change made Columbia one of the last major academic institutions and the last

university to switch to the Common Application. Scholarships are also given to undergraduate students by the admissions committee. Designations include John W. Kluge Scholars, John Jay Scholars, C. Prescott Davis Scholars, Global Scholars, Egleston Scholars, and Science Research Fellows. Named scholars are selected by the admission committee from first-year applicants. According to Columbia, the first four designated scholars "distinguish themselves for their remarkable academic and personal achievements, dynamism, intellectual curiosity, the originality and independence of their thinking, and the diversity that stems from their different cultures and their varied educational experiences". In 1919, Columbia established a student application process characterized by ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' as "the first modern college application". The application required a photograph of the applicant, the maiden name of the applicant's mother, and the applicant's religious background.

Organization

Columbia University is an independent, privately supported, nonsectarian and

not-for-profit A not-for-profit or non-for-profit organization (NFPO) is a Legal Entity, legal entity that does not distribute surplus funds to its members and is formed to fulfill specific objectives. While not-for-profit organizations and Nonprofit organ ...

institution of higher education. Its official corporate name is Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York. In 1754, the university's first charter was granted by King George II; however, its modern charter was first enacted in 1787 and last amended in 1810 by the New York State Legislature. Columbia has four official undergraduate colleges: Columbia College, the liberal arts college offering the Bachelor of Arts degree; the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science (also known as SEAS or Columbia Engineering), the engineering and applied science school offering the Bachelor of Science degree; the School of General Studies, the liberal arts college offering the Bachelor of Arts degree to non-traditional students undertaking full- or part-time study; and

is a women's liberal arts college and an academic affiliate in which students receive a Bachelor of Arts degree from Columbia University. Their degrees are signed by the presidents of Columbia University and Barnard College. Barnard students are also eligible to cross-register classes that are available through the Barnard Catalogue and alumnae can join the Columbia Alumni Association. Joint degree programs are available through Union Theological Seminary, the

Jewish Theological Seminary of America The Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) is a Conservative Jewish education organization in New York City, New York. It is one of the academic and spiritual centers of Conservative Judaism as well as a hub for academic scholarship in Jewish studies ...

, and the

Juilliard School The Juilliard School ( ) is a Private university, private performing arts music school, conservatory in New York City. Founded by Frank Damrosch as the Institute of Musical Art in 1905, the school later added dance and drama programs and became ...

. Teachers College and

are official faculties of the university; both colleges' presidents are deans under the university governance structure. The Columbia University Senate includes faculty and student representatives from Teachers College and Barnard College who serve two-year terms; all senators are accorded full voting privileges regarding matters impacting the entire university. Teachers College is an affiliated, financially independent graduate school with their own board of trustees. Pursuant to an affiliation agreement, Columbia is given the authority to confer "degrees and diplomas" to the graduates of Teachers College. The degrees are signed by presidents of Teachers College and Columbia University in a manner analogous to the university's other graduate schools. Columbia's General Studies school also has joint undergraduate programs available through

University College London University College London (Trade name, branded as UCL) is a Public university, public research university in London, England. It is a Member institutions of the University of London, member institution of the Federal university, federal Uni ...

Sciences Po Sciences Po () or Sciences Po Paris, also known as the Paris Institute of Political Studies (), is a public research university located in Paris, France, that holds the status of ''grande école'' and the legal status of . The university's unde ...

City University of Hong Kong The City University of Hong Kong (CityUHK) is a public research university in Kowloon Tong, Kowloon, Hong Kong. It was founded in 1984 as the City Polytechnic of Hong Kong and formally established as the City University of Hong Kong in 1994 ...

Trinity College Dublin Trinity College Dublin (), officially titled The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, and legally incorporated as Trinity College, the University of Dublin (TCD), is the sole constituent college of the Unive ...

, and the

. The university also has several Columbia Global Centers, in

Amman Amman ( , ; , ) is the capital and the largest city of Jordan, and the country's economic, political, and cultural center. With a population of four million as of 2021, Amman is Jordan's primate city and is the largest city in the Levant ...

Beijing Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...

Istanbul Istanbul is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, constituting the country's economic, cultural, and historical heart. With Demographics of Istanbul, a population over , it is home to 18% of the Demographics ...

Mumbai Mumbai ( ; ), also known as Bombay ( ; its official name until 1995), is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra. Mumbai is the financial capital and the most populous city proper of India with an estimated population of 12 ...

Nairobi Nairobi is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Kenya. The city lies in the south-central part of Kenya, at an elevation of . The name is derived from the Maasai language, Maasai phrase , which translates to 'place of cool waters', a ...

, Paris,

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro, or simply Rio, is the capital of the Rio de Janeiro (state), state of Rio de Janeiro. It is the List of cities in Brazil by population, second-most-populous city in Brazil (after São Paulo) and the Largest cities in the America ...

Santiago Santiago (, ; ), also known as Santiago de Chile (), is the capital and largest city of Chile and one of the largest cities in the Americas. It is located in the country's central valley and is the center of the Santiago Metropolitan Regi ...

, and

Tunis Tunis (, ') is the capital city, capital and largest city of Tunisia. The greater metropolitan area of Tunis, often referred to as "Grand Tunis", has about 2,700,000 inhabitants. , it is the third-largest city in the Maghreb region (after Casabl ...

International partnerships

Columbia students can study abroad for a semester or a year at partner institutions such as

, (EHESS), (ENS), Panthéon-Sorbonne University,

King's College London King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public university, public research university in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of George IV of the United Kingdom, King George IV ...

London School of Economics The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), established in 1895, is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the University of London. The school specialises in the social sciences. Founded ...

and the

University of Warwick The University of Warwick ( ; abbreviated as ''Warw.'' in post-nominal letters) is a public research university on the outskirts of Coventry between the West Midlands and Warwickshire, England. The university was founded in 1965 as part of ...

. Select students can study at either the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

or the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

for a year if approved by both Columbia and either Oxford or Cambridge. Columbia also has a dual MA program with the Aga Khan University in London.

Rankings

Columbia University is ranked 12th in the United States and seventh globally for 2023–2024 by '' U.S. News & World Report''. QS University Rankings listed Columbia as fifth in the United States. Ranked 15th among U.S. colleges for 2020 by ''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' (''WSJ''), also referred to simply as the ''Journal,'' is an American newspaper based in New York City. The newspaper provides extensive coverage of news, especially business and finance. It operates on a subscriptio ...

'' and ''

Times Higher Education ''Times Higher Education'' (''THE''), formerly ''The Times Higher Education Supplement'' (''The THES''), is a British magazine reporting specifically on news and issues related to higher education. Ownership TPG Capital acquired TSL Education ...

'', in recent years it has been ranked as high as second. Individual colleges and schools were also nationally ranked by ''U.S. News & World Report'' for its 2021 edition.

Columbia Law School Columbia Law School (CLS) is the Law school in the United States, law school of Columbia University, a Private university, private Ivy League university in New York City. The school was founded in 1858 as the Columbia College Law School. The un ...

was ranked fourth, the Mailman School of Public Health fourth, the School of Social Work tied for third,

Columbia Business School Columbia Business School (CBS) is the business school of Columbia University, a Private university, private research university in New York City. Established in 1916, Columbia Business School is one of six Ivy League business schools and one of ...

eighth, the College of Physicians and Surgeons tied for sixth for research (and tied for 31st for primary care), the School of Nursing tied for 11th in the master's program and tied for first in the doctorate nursing program, and the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science (graduate) was ranked tied for 14th. In 2021, Columbia was ranked seventh in the world (sixth in the United States) by ''

Academic Ranking of World Universities The ''Academic Ranking of World Universities'' (''ARWU''), also known as the Shanghai Ranking, is one of the annual publications of world university rankings. The league table was originally compiled and issued by Shanghai Jiao Tong Universi ...

'', sixth in the world by ''U.S. News & World Report'', 19th in the world by ''

QS World University Rankings The ''QS World University Rankings'' is a portfolio of comparative college and university rankings compiled by Quacquarelli Symonds, a higher education analytics firm. Its first and earliest edition was published in collaboration with '' Times ...

'', and 11th globally by ''Times Higher Education World University Rankings''. It was ranked in the first tier of American research universities, along with Harvard, MIT, and Stanford, in the 2019 report from the

Center for Measuring University Performance The Center for Measuring University Performance is a research center at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. ''The Center'' is best known for an annual report it produces, The Top American Research Universities, that ranks American univer ...

. Columbia's

Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation The Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP) is the Architecture school in the United States, architecture school of Columbia University, a Private university, private research university in New York City. It is also ...

was ranked the second most admired graduate program by

Architectural Record ''Architectural Record'' is a US-based monthly magazine dedicated to architecture and interior design. Its editor in chief is Josephine Minutillo. ''The Record'', as it is sometimes colloquially referred to, is widely-recognized as an important ...

in 2020. In 2011, the Mines ParisTech: Professional Ranking of World Universities ranked Columbia third best university for forming CEOs in the US and 12th worldwide. In 2025, Columbia was ranked 250 out of 257 top colleges in "Free Speech Rankings" by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression and "College Pulse", after ranking 214 of 248 in 2024 and at the bottom of 203 in 2022/2023. In 2024 and 2025, Columbia received a D on the "Campus Antisemitism Report Card" of the Anti-Defamation League, which the advocacy organization first launched in spring 2024, in the lead-up to and in the context of campus conflict over the 2024 Columbia University pro-Palestinian campus occupations.

Research

Columbia is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity". Columbia was the first North American site where the

uranium Uranium is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Ura ...

atom was split. The College of Physicians and Surgeons played a central role in developing the modern understanding of neuroscience with the publication of '' Principles of Neural Science'', described by historian of science Katja Huenther as the "neuroscience 'bible' ". The book was written by a team of Columbia researchers that included Nobel Prize winner

Eric Kandel Eric Richard Kandel (; born Erich Richard Kandel, November 7, 1929) is an Austrian-born American medical doctor who specialized in psychiatry, a neuroscientist and a professor of biochemistry and biophysics at the College of Physicians and Surgeo ...

, James H. Schwartz, and Thomas Jessell. Columbia was the birthplace of

and the

. The first brain-computer interface capable of translating brain signals into speech was developed by neuroengineers at Columbia. The

MPEG-2 MPEG-2 (a.k.a. H.222/H.262 as was defined by the ITU) is a standard for "the generic coding of moving pictures and associated audio information". It describes a combination of lossy video compression and lossy audio data compression methods ...

algorithm of transmitting high quality audio and video over limited bandwidth was developed by Dimitris Anastassiou, a Columbia professor of electrical engineering. Biologist

Martin Chalfie Martin Lee Chalfie (born January 15, 1947) is an American scientist. He is University Professor at Columbia University. He shared the 2008 Nobel Prize in Chemistry along with Osamu Shimomura and Roger Y. Tsien "for the discovery and develop ...

was the first to introduce the use of Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP) in labeling cells in intact organisms. Other inventions and products related to Columbia include Sequential Lateral Solidification (SLS) technology for making LCDs, System Management Arts (SMARTS),

Session Initiation Protocol The Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is a signaling protocol used for initiating, maintaining, and terminating communication sessions that include voice, video and messaging applications. SIP is used in Internet telephony, in private IP telepho ...

(SIP) (which is used for audio, video, chat, instant messaging and whiteboarding),

pharmacopeia A pharmacopoeia, pharmacopeia, or pharmacopoea (or the typographically obsolete rendering, ''pharmacopœia''), meaning "drug-making", in its modern technical sense, is a reference work containing directions for the identification of compound med ...

, Macromodel (software for computational chemistry), a new and better recipe for glass concrete, Blue

LED A light-emitting diode (LED) is a semiconductor device that emits light when current flows through it. Electrons in the semiconductor recombine with electron holes, releasing energy in the form of photons. The color of the light (corresp ...

s, and Beamprop (used in photonics). Columbia scientists have been credited with about 175 new inventions in the health sciences each year. More than 30 pharmaceutical products based on discoveries and inventions made at Columbia reached the market. These include Remicade (for arthritis), Reopro (for blood clot complications), Xalatan (for glaucoma), Benefix, Latanoprost (a glaucoma treatment), shoulder prosthesis, homocysteine (testing for cardiovascular disease), and Zolinza (for cancer therapy). Columbia Technology Ventures (formerly Science and Technology Ventures), , manages some 600 patents and more than 250 active license agreements. Patent-related deals earned Columbia more than $230 million in the 2006 fiscal year, according to the university, more than any university in the world. Columbia owns many unique research facilities, such as the Columbia Institute for Tele-Information dedicated to

telecommunications Telecommunication, often used in its plural form or abbreviated as telecom, is the transmission of information over a distance using electronic means, typically through cables, radio waves, or other communication technologies. These means of ...

and the

, which is an

astronomical Astronomy is a natural science that studies celestial objects and the phenomena that occur in the cosmos. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and their overall evolution. Objects of interest include ...

observatory An observatory is a location used for observing terrestrial, marine, or celestial events. Astronomy, climatology/meteorology, geophysics, oceanography and volcanology are examples of disciplines for which observatories have been constructed. Th ...

affiliated with

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

Military and veteran enrollment

Columbia is a long-standing participant of the

United States Department of Veterans Affairs The United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is a Cabinet-level executive branch department of the federal government charged with providing lifelong healthcare services to eligible military veterans at the 170 VA medical centers an ...

Yellow Ribbon Program, allowing eligible veterans to pursue a Columbia undergraduate degree regardless of socioeconomic status for over 70 years. As a part of the Eisenhower Leader Development Program (ELDP) in partnership with the

United States Military Academy The United States Military Academy (USMA), commonly known as West Point, is a United States service academies, United States service academy in West Point, New York that educates cadets for service as Officer_(armed_forces)#United_States, comm ...

West Point The United States Military Academy (USMA), commonly known as West Point, is a United States service academies, United States service academy in West Point, New York that educates cadets for service as Officer_(armed_forces)#United_States, comm ...

, Columbia is the only school in the Ivy League to offer a graduate degree program in organizational psychology to aid military officers in tactical decision making and strategic management.

Awards

Several prestigious awards are administered by Columbia University, most notably the Pulitzer Prize and the Bancroft Prize in history. Updated 2013 by Sig Gissler. Other prizes, which are awarded by the Graduate School of Journalism, include the Alfred I. duPont–Columbia University Award, the

National Magazine Awards The National Magazine Awards, also known as the Ellie Awards, honor print and digital publications that consistently demonstrate superior execution of editorial objectives, innovative techniques, noteworthy enterprise and imaginative design. Or ...

, the Maria Moors Cabot Prizes, the John Chancellor Award, and the Lukas Prizes, which include the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize and Mark Lynton History Prize. The university also administers the

Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize The Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize for Biology or Biochemistry is an annual prize awarded by Columbia University to a researcher or group of researchers who have made an outstanding contribution in basic research in the fields of biology or biochemist ...

, which is considered an important precursor to the Nobel Prize, 55 of its 117 recipients having gone on to win either a

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine () is awarded yearly by the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute for outstanding discoveries in physiology or medicine. The Nobel Prize is not a single prize, but five separate prizes that, acco ...

Nobel Prize in Chemistry The Nobel Prize in Chemistry () is awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to scientists in the various fields of chemistry. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895, awarded for outst ...

as of October 2024; the W. Alden Spencer Award; the Vetlesen Prize, which is known as the Nobel Prize of geology; the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission Prize for the Translation of Japanese Literature, the oldest such award; the Edwin Howard Armstrong award; the

Calderone Prize The Frank A. Calderone Prize in Public Health is an award in the field of public health. It is given every two years by the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health to an individual who has made a "transformational contribution" in the ...

in public health; and the Ditson Conductor's Award.

Student life

In 2020, Columbia University's student population was 31,455 (8,842 students in undergraduate programs and 22,613 in postgraduate programs), with 45% of the student population identifying themselves as a minority. Twenty-six percent of students at Columbia have family incomes below $60,000. 16% of students at Columbia receive Federal Pell Grants, which mostly go to students whose family incomes are below $40,000. Seventeen percent of students are the first member of their family to attend a four-year college. On-campus housing is guaranteed for all four years as an undergraduate. Columbia College and the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science (also known as SEAS or Columbia Engineering) share housing in the on-campus residence halls. First-year students usually live in one of the large residence halls situated around South Lawn: Carman Hall, Furnald Hall,

Hartley Hall Hartley Hall was the first official residence hall (or dormitory) constructed on the campus of Columbia University's Morningside Heights campus, and houses undergraduate students from Columbia College of Columbia University, Columbia College as we ...

, John Jay Hall, or Wallach Hall (originally Livingston Hall). Upperclassmen participate in a room selection process, wherein students can pick to live in a mix of either corridor- or apartment-style housing with their friends. The Columbia University School of General Studies,

and graduate schools have their own apartment-style housing in the surrounding neighborhood. Columbia University is home to many fraternities, sororities, and co-educational Greek organizations. Approximately 10–15% of undergraduate students are associated with Greek life. Many Barnard women also join Columbia sororities. There has been a Greek presence on campus since the establishment in 1836 of the Delta chapter of Alpha Delta Phi.

Publications

The ''

Columbia Daily Spectator The ''Columbia Daily Spectator'' (known colloquially as ''Spec'') is the student newspaper of Columbia University. Founded in 1877, it is the second-oldest continuously operating college news daily in the nation after '' The Harvard Crimson'', a ...

'' is the nation's second-oldest continuously operating daily student newspaper. '' The Blue and White'' is a monthly literary magazine established in 1890 that discusses campus life and local politics. '' Bwog'', originally an offshoot of ''The Blue and White'' but now fully independent, is an online campus news and entertainment source. '' The Morningside Post'' is a student-run multimedia news publication. Political publications include '' The Current'', a journal of politics, culture and Jewish Affairs; the '' Columbia Political Review'', the multi-partisan political magazine of the Columbia Political Union; and ''AdHoc'', which denotes itself as the "progressive" campus magazine and deals largely with local political issues and arts events. ''Columbia Magazine'' is the alumni magazine of Columbia, serving all 340,000+ of the university's alumni. Arts and literary publications include ''The Columbia Review'', the nation's oldest college literary magazine; ''Surgam'', the literary magazine of The Philolexian Society; ''Quarto'', Columbia University's official undergraduate literary magazine; ''4x4'', a student-run alternative to ''Quarto''; ''Columbia'', a nationally regarded literary journal; the ''Columbia Journal of Literary Criticism''; and ''The Mobius Strip'', an online arts and literary magazine. '' Inside New York'' is an annual guidebook to New York City, written, edited, and published by Columbia undergraduates. Through a distribution agreement with

Columbia University Press Columbia University Press is a university press based in New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's la ...

, the book is sold at major retailers and independent bookstores. Columbia is home to numerous undergraduate academic publications. The ''Columbia Undergraduate Science Journal'' prints original science research in its two annual publications. The '' Journal of Politics & Society'' is a journal of undergraduate research in the social sciences; ''Publius'' is an undergraduate journal of politics established in 2008 and published biannually; the ''Columbia East Asia Review'' allows undergraduates throughout the world to publish original work on China, Japan, Korea, Tibet, and Vietnam and is supported by the Weatherhead East Asian Institute; '' The Birch'' is an undergraduate journal of Eastern European and Eurasian culture that is the first national student-run journal of its kind; the ''Columbia Economics Review'' is the undergraduate economic journal on research and policy supported by the Columbia Economics Department; and the ''Columbia Science Review'' is a science magazine that prints general interest articles and faculty profiles. Humor publications on Columbia's campus include '' The Fed'', a triweekly satire and investigative newspaper, and the '' Jester of Columbia.'' Other publications include ''The Columbian'', the undergraduate colleges' annually published yearbook; the ''Gadfly'', a biannual journal of popular philosophy produced by undergraduates; and ''Rhapsody in Blue'', an undergraduate urban studies magazine. Professional journals published by academic departments at Columbia University include ''Current Musicology'' and '' The Journal of Philosophy''. During the spring semester, graduate students in the Journalism School publish ''The Bronx Beat'', a bi-weekly newspaper covering the South Bronx. Founded in 1961 under the auspices of Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, the ''

Columbia Journalism Review The ''Columbia Journalism Review'' (''CJR'') is a biannual magazine for professional journalists that has been published by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism since 1961. Its original purpose was "to assess the performance ...

'' (CJR) examines day-to-day press performance as well as the forces that affect that performance. The magazine is published six times a year. Former publications include the ''Columbia University Forum'', a review of literature and cultural affairs distributed for free to alumni.

Broadcasting

Columbia is home to two pioneers in undergraduate

campus radio Campus radio (also known as college radio, university radio or student radio) is a type of radio station that is run by the students of a college, university or other educational institution. Programming may be exclusively created or produced ...

broadcasting, WKCR-FM and CTV. Many undergraduates are also involved with Barnard's radio station, WBAR. WKCR, the student run radio station that broadcasts to the Tri-state area, claims to be the oldest FM radio station in the world, owing to the university's affiliation with

Edwin Howard Armstrong Edwin Howard Armstrong (December 18, 1890 – February 1, 1954) was an American electrical engineer and inventor who developed FM (frequency modulation) radio and the superheterodyne receiver system. He held 42 patents and received numerous awa ...

. The station has its studios on the second floor of Alfred Lerner Hall on the Morningside campus with its main transmitter tower at 4 Times Square in

Midtown Manhattan Midtown Manhattan is the central portion of the New York City borough of Manhattan, serving as the city's primary central business district. Midtown is home to some of the city's most prominent buildings, including the Empire State Building, the ...

. Columbia Television (CTV) is the nation's second oldest student television station and the home of CTV News, a weekly live news program produced by undergraduate students.

Debate and Model UN

The Philolexian Society is a literary and debating club founded in 1802, making it the oldest student group at Columbia, as well as the third oldest collegiate literary society in the country. The society annually administers the Joyce Kilmer Memorial Bad Poetry Contest. The Columbia Parliamentary Debate Team competes in tournaments around the country as part of the American Parliamentary Debate Association, and hosts both high school and college tournaments on Columbia's campus, as well as public debates on issues affecting the university. The Columbia International Relations Council and Association (CIRCA), oversees Columbia's

Model United Nations Model United Nations, also known as Model UN (MUN), is an educational simulation of the United Nations, which teaches students about diplomacy, international relations, global issues, and how the United Nations is run. During a model UN confe ...

activities. CIRCA hosts college and high school Model UN conferences, hosts speakers influential in international politics to speak on campus, and trains students from underprivileged schools in New York in Model UN.

Technology and entrepreneurship

Columbia is a top supplier of young engineering entrepreneurs for New York City. Over the past 20 years, graduates of Columbia established over 100 technology companies. The Columbia University Organization of Rising Entrepreneurs (CORE) was founded in 1999. The student-run group aims to foster entrepreneurship on campus. Each year CORE hosts dozens of events, including talks, #StartupColumbia, a conference and venture competition for $250,000, and Ignite@CU, a weekend for undergrads interested in design, engineering, and entrepreneurship. Notable speakers include

Peter Thiel Peter Andreas Thiel (; born 11 October 1967) is an American entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and political activist. A co-founder of PayPal, Palantir Technologies, and Founders Fund, he was the first outside investor in Facebook. According ...

Jack Dorsey Jack Patrick Dorsey (born November 19, 1976) is an American businessperson, who is a co-founder of Twitter, Inc. and its CEO during 2007–2008 and 2015–2021, as well as co-founder, principal executive officer and chairman of Block, Inc. (deve ...

Alexis Ohanian Alexis Kerry Ohanian (; born April 24, 1983) is an American internet entrepreneur and investor. He is best known as the co-founder and former executive chairman of the social media site Reddit along with Steve Huffman and Aaron Swartz. He also ...

, Drew Houston, and

Mark Cuban Mark Cuban (born July 31, 1958) is an American businessman and television personality. He is the former principal owner and current minority owner of the Dallas Mavericks of the National Basketball Association (NBA) and co-owner of 2929 Entertain ...

. As of 2006, CORE had awarded graduate and undergraduate students over $100,000 in seed capital. CampusNetwork, an on-campus social networking site called Campus Network that preceded Facebook, was created and popularized by Columbia engineering student Adam Goldberg in 2003.

Mark Zuckerberg Mark Elliot Zuckerberg (; born May 14, 1984) is an American businessman who co-founded the social media service Facebook and its parent company Meta Platforms, of which he is the chairman, chief executive officer, and controlling sharehold ...

later asked Goldberg to join him in

Palo Alto Palo Alto ( ; Spanish language, Spanish for ) is a charter city in northwestern Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a Sequoia sempervirens, coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. Th ...

to work on Facebook, but Goldberg declined the offer. The Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science offers a minor in Technical Entrepreneurship through its Center for Technology, Innovation, and Community Engagement. SEAS' entrepreneurship activities focus on community building initiatives in New York and worldwide, made possible through partners such as

Microsoft Corporation Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

. On June 14, 2010, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg launched the NYC Media Lab to promote innovations in New York's media industry. Situated at the

New York University Tandon School of Engineering The New York University Tandon School of Engineering (commonly referred to as Tandon) is the engineering and applied sciences school of New York University. Tandon is the second oldest private engineering and technology school in the United St ...

, the lab is a consortium of Columbia University,

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private university, private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a Nondenominational ...

, and

New York City Economic Development Corporation New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) is a public-benefit corporation that serves as the official economic development organization for New York City. NYCEDC gives its mission as strengthening business confidence in New York C ...

acting to connect companies with universities in new technology research. The Lab is modeled after similar ones at

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of modern technology and sc ...

and Stanford, and was established with a $250,000 grant from the New York City Economic Development Corporation.

World Leaders Forum

Established in 2003 by university president Lee C. Bollinger, the World Leaders Forum at Columbia University provides the opportunity for students and faculty to listen to world leaders in government, religion, industry, finance, and academia. Past forum speakers include former president of the United States

Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton (né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician and lawyer who was the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, ...

, the prime minister of India

Atal Bihari Vajpayee Atal Bihari Vajpayee (25 December 1924 – 16 August 2018) was an Indian poet, writer and statesman who served as the prime minister of India, first for a term of 13 days in 1996, then for a period of 13 months from 1998 ...

, former president of Ghana John Agyekum Kufuor, president of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai, prime minister of Russia Vladimir Putin, president of the Republic of Mozambique Joaquim Alberto Chissano, president of the Republic of Bolivia Carlos Diego Mesa Gisbert, president of the Republic of Romania Ion Iliescu, president of the Republic of Latvia Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga, the first female president of Finland Tarja Halonen, President Yudhoyono of Indonesia, President Pervez Musharraf of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, Iraq President Jalal Talabani, the 14th Dalai Lama, president of the Islamic Republic of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, financier George Soros, Mayor of New York City Michael R. Bloomberg, President Václav Klaus of the Czech Republic, President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner of Argentina, former Secretary-General of the United Nations Kofi Annan, and Al Gore.

Other

2014 Columbia University Earl Hall from north

The Columbia University Orchestra was founded by composer Edward MacDowell in 1896, and is the oldest continually operating university orchestra in the United States. Undergraduate student composers at Columbia may choose to become involved with Columbia New Music, which sponsors concerts of music written by undergraduate students from all of Columbia's schools. The Notes and Keys, the oldest a cappella group at Columbia, was founded in 1909. There are a number of performing arts groups at Columbia dedicated to producing student theater, including the Columbia Players, King's Crown Shakespeare Troupe (KCST), Columbia Musical Theater Society (CMTS), NOMADS (New and Original Material Authored and Directed by Students), LateNite Theatre, Columbia University Performing Arts League (CUPAL), Black Theatre Ensemble (BTE), sketch comedy group Chowdah, and improvisational troupes Alfred and Fruit Paunch. The Columbia Queer Alliance is the central Columbia student organization that represents the bisexual, lesbian, gay, transgender, and questioning student population. It is the oldest gay student organization in the world, founded as the Student homophile movement, Homophile League in 1967 by students including lifelong activist Stephen Donaldson (activist), Stephen Donaldson. Columbia University campus military groups include the U.S. Military Veterans of Columbia University and Advocates for Columbia ROTC. In the 2005–06 academic year, the Columbia Military Society, Columbia's student group for ROTC cadets and Marine officer candidates, was renamed the Hamilton Society for "students who aspire to serve their nation through the military in the tradition of

". Columbia has several secret societies, including

, which was founded at the university in 1847, and two senior societies, the Nacoms and Sachems.

Athletics

A member institution of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in NCAA Division I, Division I Football Championship Subdivision, FCS, Columbia fields varsity teams in 29 sports and is a member of the

. The football Lions play home games at the 17,000-seat Robert K. Kraft Field at Lawrence A. Wien Stadium. The Baker Athletics Complex also includes facilities for baseball, softball, soccer, lacrosse, field hockey, tennis, track, and rowing, as well as the new Campbell Sports Center, which opened in January 2013. The basketball, fencing, swimming & diving, volleyball, and wrestling programs are based at the Dodge Physical Fitness Center on the main campus. Former students include Baseball Hall of Famers Lou Gehrig and Eddie Collins, Pro Football Hall of Fame, football Hall of Famer Sid Luckman, Marcellus Wiley, and world champion women's weightlifter Karyn Marshall. On May 17, 1939, fledgling NBC broadcast a doubleheader between the Columbia Lions and the Princeton Tigers at Columbia's Baker Field, making it the first televised regular athletic event in history. Columbia University participated in multiple firsts within collegiate athletics. The football program is best known for its record of futility set during the 1980s: between 1983 and 1988, the team lost 44 games in a row, which is still the record for the NCAA Football Championship Subdivision. The streak was broken on October 8, 1988, with a 16–13 victory over arch-rival Princeton University. That was the Lions' first victory at Wien Stadium, which had been opened during the losing streak and was already four years old. A new tradition has developed with the Liberty Cup. The Liberty Cup is awarded annually to the winner of the football game between Fordham University, Fordham and Columbia Universities, two of the only three NCAA Division I football teams in New York City.

Traditions

The Varsity Show

The Varsity Show is one of the oldest traditions at Columbia. Founded in 1893 as a fundraiser for the university's fledgling athletic teams, the Varsity Show now draws together the entire Columbia undergraduate community for a series of performances every April. Dedicated to producing a unique full-length musical that skewers and satirizes many dubious aspects of life at Columbia, the Varsity Show is written and performed exclusively by university undergraduates. Various renowned playwrights, composers, authors, directors, and actors have contributed to the Varsity Show, either as writers or performers, while students at Columbia, including Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II, Lorenz Hart, Herman J. Mankiewicz, I. A. L. Diamond, Herman Wouk, Greta Gerwig, and Kate McKinnon. Notable past shows include ''Fly With Me (musical), Fly With Me'' (1920), The Streets of New York (musical), ''The'' ''Streets of New York'' (1948), ''The Sky's the Limit'' (1954), and ''Angels at Columbia'' (1994). In particular, ''Streets of New York'', after having been revived three times, opened off-Broadway in 1963 and was awarded a 1964 Drama Desk Award. ''The Mischief Maker'' (1903), written by Edgar Allan Woolf and Cassius Freeborn, premiered at Madison Square Garden (1890), Madison Square Garden in 1906 as ''Mam'zelle Champagne''.

Tree Lighting and Yule Log ceremonies

The campus Tree Lighting ceremony was inaugurated in 1998. It celebrates the illumination of the medium-sized trees lining College Walk in front of Kent Hall and Hamilton Hall (Columbia University), Hamilton Hall on the east end and Dodge Hall and Pulitzer Hall on the west, just before finals week in early December. The lights remain on until February 28. Students meet at Columbia University sundial, the sundial for free hot chocolate, performances by ''a cappella'' groups, and speeches by the university president and a guest. Immediately following the College Walk festivities is one of Columbia's older holiday traditions, the lighting of the Yule Log. The Christmas ceremony dates to a period prior to the

, but lapsed before being revived by President

in 1910. A troop of students dressed as

soldiers carry the eponymous log from the sundial to the lounge of John Jay Hall, where it is lit amid the singing of seasonal carols. The Christmas ceremony is accompanied by a reading of ''A Visit From St. Nicholas'' by Clement Clarke Moore and ''Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus'' by Francis Pharcellus Church.

Notable people

Alumni

The university has graduated many notable alumni, including five Founding Fathers of the United States, Gouverneur Morris, an author of the United States Constitution and Robert R. Livingston (chancellor), a member of the Committee of Five. Three United States presidents have attended Columbia, as well as ten Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, including three Chief Justice of the United States, Chief Justices. , 125 Pulitzer Prize winners and 39 Oscar winners have attended Columbia. , there were 101 National Academy members who were alumni. In a 2016 ranking of universities worldwide with respect to living graduates who are billionaires, Columbia ranked second, after Harvard. Former U.S. Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin Delano Roosevelt attended the law school. Other political figures educated at Columbia include former U.S. President Barack Obama, Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court Ruth Bader Ginsburg, former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, former chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank Alan Greenspan, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, and U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli Jr. The university has also educated 29 foreign Head of state, heads of state, including president of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili, president of East Timor José Ramos-Horta, president of Estonia Toomas Hendrik Ilves and other historical figures such as Wellington Koo, Radovan Karadžić, Gaston Eyskens, and T. V. Soong. One of the founding fathers of modern India and the prime architect of the Constitution of India, B. R. Ambedkar, was an alumnus. Alumni of Columbia have occupied top positions in Wall Street and the rest of the business world. Notable members of the Astor family attended Columbia, while other business graduates include investor Warren Buffett, former CEO of PBS and NBC Lawrence K. Grossman, chairman of Walmart S. Robson Walton, Bain Capital Co-Managing Partner, Jonathan Lavine, Thomson Reuters CEO Tom Glocer, New York Stock Exchange president Lynn Martin (banker), Lynn Martin, and AllianceBernstein Chairman and CEO Lewis A. Sanders. CEO's of top Fortune 500 companies include James P. Gorman of Morgan Stanley, Robert J. Stevens of Lockheed Martin, Philippe Dauman of Viacom (2005–2019), Viacom, Robert Bakish of Paramount Global, Ursula Burns of Xerox, Devin Wenig of EBay, Vikram Pandit of Citigroup, Ralph Izzo of Public Service Enterprise Group, Gail Koziara Boudreaux of Anthem (company), Anthem, and Frank Blake (businessman), Frank Blake of The Home Depot. Notable labor organizer and women's educator Louise Leonard McLaren received her degree of Master of Arts from Columbia. In science and technology, Columbia alumni include: founder of

Herman Hollerith; inventor of FM broadcast, FM radio Edwin Armstrong; Francis Mechner; integral in development of the nuclear submarine Hyman G. Rickover, Hyman Rickover; founder of Google China Kai-Fu Lee; scientists Stephen Jay Gould, Robert Millikan, Helium–neon laser inventor Ali Javan and Mihajlo Pupin; chief-engineer of the

, William Barclay Parsons; philosophers Irwin Edman and Robert Nozick; economist Milton Friedman; psychologist Harriet Babcock; archaeologist Josephine Platner Shear; and sociologists Lewis A. Coser and Rose Laub Coser. Many Columbia alumni have gone on to renowned careers in the arts, including composers Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II, Lorenz Hart, and Art Garfunkel; and painter Georgia O'Keeffe. Five United States Poet Laureates received their degrees from Columbia. Columbia alumni have made an indelible mark in the field of American poetry and literature, with such people as Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, pioneers of the Beat Generation; and Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston, seminal figures in the Harlem Renaissance, all having attended the university. Other notable writers who attended Columbia include authors Isaac Asimov, J.D. Salinger, Upton Sinclair, Ursula K. Le Guin, Danielle Valore Evans, and Hunter S. Thompson. In architecture, William Lee Stoddart, a prolific architect of Eastern United States, U.S. East Coast hotels, is an alumnus. University alumni have also been very prominent in the film industry, with 33 alumni and former students winning a combined 43 Academy Awards (). Some notable Columbia alumni that have gone on to work in film include directors Sidney Lumet (''12 Angry Men (1957 film), 12 Angry Men'') and Kathryn Bigelow (''The Hurt Locker''), screenwriters Howard Koch (screenwriter), Howard Koch (''Casablanca (film), Casablanca'') and Joseph L. Mankiewicz (''All About Eve''), and actors James Cagney, Ed Harris and Timothée Chalamet. File:Alexander Hamilton portrait by John Trumbull 1806.jpg,

: Founding Father of the United States; author of ''The Federalist Papers''; first United States Secretary of the Treasury — King's College File:John Jay (Gilbert Stuart portrait).jpg,

: Founding Father of the United States; author of ''The Federalist Papers''; first Chief Justice of the United States; second Governor of New York — King's College File:Robert R Livingston, attributed to Gilbert Stuart (1755-1828).jpg, Robert R. Livingston (chancellor), Robert R. Livingston: Founding Father of the United States; drafter of the United States Declaration of Independence, Declaration of Independence; first United States Secretary of State, United States Secretary of Foreign Affairs — King's College File:Gouverneur Morris.jpg, Gouverneur Morris: Founding Father of the United States; author of the United States Constitution; United States Senate, United States Senator from List of United States Senators from New York, New York — King's College File:DeWitt Clinton by Rembrandt Peale.jpg, DeWitt Clinton: United States Senate, United States Senator from New York; sixth Governor of New York; responsible for construction of Erie Canal — Columbia College File:President Barack Obama.jpg, Barack Obama: 44th President of the United States; United States Senator from List of United States Senators from Illinois, Illinois; List of Nobel laureates, Nobel laureate — Columbia College File:FDR in 1933.jpg, Franklin D. Roosevelt: 32nd President of the United States; 44th Governor of New York — Columbia Law School File:President Theodore Roosevelt, 1904.jpg, Theodore Roosevelt: 26th President of the United States; 25th Vice President of the United States; 33rd Governor of New York; Nobel laureate – Columbia Law School File:Wellington Koo 1945.jpg, Wellington Koo: acting President of the Republic of China; judge of the International Court of Justice — Columbia College, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences File:Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar.jpg, B. R. Ambedkar: List of national founders#Modern, Founding Father of India; architect of the Constitution of India; First Ministry of Law and Justice (India), Minister of Law and Justice — Graduate School of Arts and Sciences File:Ruth Bader Ginsburg official SCOTUS portrait.jpg, Ruth Bader Ginsburg: Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States — Columbia Law School File:Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch Official Portrait.jpg, Neil Gorsuch: Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States — Columbia College File:Charles Evans Hughes cph.3b15401.jpg, Charles Evans Hughes: 11th Chief Justice of the United States; 44th United States Secretary of State; 35th Governor of New York — Columbia Law School File:Chief Justice Harlan Fiske Stone photograph circa 1927-1932 (cropped).jpg, Harlan F. Stone, Harlan Fiske Stone: 12th Chief Justice of the United States; 52nd United States Attorney General — Columbia Law School File:Hamilton Fish Brady Edited.jpg, Hamilton Fish: 26th United States Secretary of State; United States Senator from New York; 16th Governor of New York — Columbia College File:Portrait of Milton Friedman.jpg, Milton Friedman: Nobel laureate, leading member of the Chicago school of economics — Graduate School of Arts and Sciences File:Simon Kuznets 1971b.jpg, Simon Kuznets: Nobel laureate; invented concept of Gross domestic product, GDP; Milton Friedman's doctoral advisor — School of General Studies, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences File:Alan Greenspan color photo portrait.jpg, Alan Greenspan: 13th Chair of the Federal Reserve — Graduate School of Arts and Sciences File:Warren Buffett KU Visit.jpg, Warren Buffett: CEO of Berkshire Hathaway; one of the Forbes list of billionaires, world's wealthiest people — Columbia Business School File:LangstonHughes crop.jpg, Langston Hughes: Harlem Renaissance poet, novelist, and playwright — School of Engineering and Applied Science File:Zora Neale Hurston.jpg, Zora Neale Hurston: Harlem Renaissance author, anthropologist, and filmmaker — Barnard College, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences File:J. D. Salinger (Catcher in the Rye portrait).jpg, J. D. Salinger: novelist, ''The Catcher in the Rye'' — School of General Studies File:Amelia Earhart 1935.jpg, Amelia Earhart: first Women in aviation, female aviator to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean — School of General Studies File:Jake Gyllenhaal (22373266462) (cropped 2).jpg, Jake Gyllenhaal: actor and film producer — Columbia College

Faculty

As of 2021, Columbia employs 4,381 faculty, including 70 members of the

, 178 members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and 65 members of the National Academy of Medicine. In total, the Columbia faculty has included 52 Nobel Prize, Nobel laureates, 12 National Medal of Science recipients, and 32 National Academy of Engineering members. Columbia University faculty played particularly important roles during

and the creation of the New Deal under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who attended Columbia Law School. The three core members of Roosevelt's Brain trust#Roosevelt's "Brain Trust", Brain Trust: Adolf A. Berle, Raymond Moley, and Rexford Tugwell, were law professors at Columbia. The The Statistical Research Group of World War II, Statistical Research Group, which used statistics to analyze military problems during World War II, was composed of Columbia researchers and faculty including George Stigler and Milton Friedman. Columbia faculty and researchers, including

, Leo Szilard, Eugene T. Booth, John R. Dunning, George B. Pegram, Walter Zinn, Chien-Shiung Wu, Francis G. Slack, Harold Urey, Herbert L. Anderson, and Isidor Isaac Rabi, also played a significant role during the early phases of the

. Following the rise of Nazi Germany, the exiled University of Frankfurt Institute for Social Research, Institute for Social Research at Goethe University Frankfurt would affiliate itself with Columbia from 1934 to 1950. It was during this period that thinkers including Theodor W. Adorno, Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, and Herbert Marcuse wrote and published some of the most seminal works of the Frankfurt School, including ''Reason and Revolution'', ''Dialectic of Enlightenment'', and Eclipse of Reason (Horkheimer), ''Eclipse of Reason''. Professors Edward Said, author of Orientalism (book), ''Orientalism'', and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Gayatri Spivak are generally considered as founders of the field of postcolonialism; other professors that have significantly contributed to the field include Hamid Dabashi and Joseph Massad. The works of professors Kimberlé Crenshaw, Patricia J. Williams, and Kendall Thomas were foundational to the field of critical race theory. Columbia and its affiliated faculty have also made significant contributions to the study of religion. The affiliated Union Theological Seminary is a center of liberal Christianity in the United States, having served as the birthplace of Black theology through the efforts of faculty including James H. Cone and Cornel West, and Womanist theology, through the works of Katie Cannon, Emilie Townes, and Delores S. Williams. Likewise, the Jewish Theological Seminary of America was the birthplace of Conservative Judaism movement in the United States, which was founded and led by faculty members including Solomon Schechter, Alexander Kohut, and Louis Ginzberg in the early 20th century, and is a major center for Jewish studies in general. Other schools of thought in the humanities Columbia professors made significant contributions toward include the Dunning School, founded by William Archibald Dunning; the anthropological schools of historical particularism and cultural relativism, founded by Franz Boas; and functional psychology, whose founders and proponents include John Dewey, James McKeen Cattell, Edward L. Thorndike, and Robert S. Woodworth.Leahey, Thomas Hardy (2004). ''A History of Psychology: Main Currents in psychological thought''. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall. . Notable figures that have served as the president of Columbia University include List of presidents of the United States, 34th President of the United States Dwight D. Eisenhower, List of vice presidents of the United States, 4th Vice President of the United States George Clinton (vice president), George Clinton, Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father and United States Senate, U.S. Senator from Connecticut William Samuel Johnson, Nobel Peace Prize laureate

, and First Amendment to the United States Constitution, First Amendment scholar Lee Bollinger. Notable Columbia University faculty include Zbigniew Brzezinski, Sonia Sotomayor, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Lee Bollinger, Franz Boas, Margaret Mead, Edward Sapir, John Dewey, Charles A. Beard, Max Horkheimer, Herbert Marcuse, Edward Said, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak,

, Chien-Shiung Wu, Tsung-Dao Lee, Jack Steinberger, Joachim Frank, Joseph Stiglitz, Jeffrey Sachs, Robert Mundell, Thomas Hunt Morgan,

, and Andrei Okounkov.

Notes

References

Sources

* * * *

External links

* {{Authority control Columbia University, 1754 establishments in the Province of New York Colonial colleges Educational institutions established in 1754 McKim, Mead & White buildings Morningside Heights, Manhattan Need-blind educational institutions New York (state) in the American Revolution Private universities and colleges in New York City Universities and colleges established in the 18th century Universities and colleges in Manhattan 501(c)(3) organizations Universities and colleges in New York City

History

18th century

19th century

20th century

21st century

Bollinger presidency (2002–2023): Expansion, campaign, and globalization

Shafik presidency (2023–2024)

2025

Campus

Morningside Heights

Other campuses

Sustainability

Transportation

Academics

Undergraduate admissions and financial aid

Organization

International partnerships

Rankings

Research

Military and veteran enrollment

Awards

Student life

Publications

Broadcasting

Debate and Model UN

Technology and entrepreneurship

World Leaders Forum

Other

Athletics

Traditions

The Varsity Show

Tree Lighting and Yule Log ceremonies

Notable people

Alumni

Faculty

See also

Notes

References

Sources

Further reading

External links