The City University of New York

TODAY'S City University of New York dates back to the 1847 founding of the Free Academy by Townsend Harris, an early champion of public education and a pioneering diplomat who was the United States' first ambassador to Japan. With an inaugural class of 143 academically qualified young men, the Academy set upon a mission to, in Harris' words, "let the children of the rich and the poor take their seats together and know of no distinction save that of industry, good conduct, and intellect." The Academy quickly grew in reputation and enrollment and, as a new century approached, plans were approved for an expansive neo-Gothic campus uptown for what became known as the College of the City of New York. Twenty years after the first young men entered the Academy, a separate school for the education of teachers, the Female Normal and High School, later renamed Hunter College in honor of its founder Thomas Hunter, offered the same higher education opportunities to women.

Fueled by an immigration boom in the early 20th century, City College and Hunter expanded to include evening session branches in Brooklyn and Queens. In 1926, the state Legislature established a Board of Higher Education to oversee the growing municipal college system and expand public access in the city's outer boroughs. Over the next decade, Brooklyn College and Queens College were founded, and Hunter established a Bronx campus, which decades later would become Lehman College.

Despite the city's limited resources, demand for public higher education continued to grow during the Great Depression era. The colleges created night divisions that charged affordable tuition while offering students the opportunity to work toward their degrees or raise their grades to the levels required to enter the colleges' free baccalaureate programs. In the ensuing post-World War II years, another dramatic enrollment boom led to the creation of several community colleges, including one on Staten Island. In 1961, the state Legislature formally established The City University of New York, uniting what by then had become seven municipal colleges into a formally integrated system, and authorizing the new University to offer doctoral programs. Demand increased further during the 1960s, leading to a six-year period when tuition was briefly eliminated and senior college admission was given to any city resident with a high school diploma or equivalency degree. Today, the senior colleges have selective admission requirements. Community colleges continue to serve as portals to opportunity for applicants with a high school or GED diploma.

The City University of New York is the nation’s leading urban public university. Founded in 1847, CUNY counts 13 Nobel Prize and 26 MacArthur “genius” grant winners among its alumni. CUNY students, alumni and faculty have garnered scores of other prestigious honors over the years in recognition of historic contributions to the advancement of the sciences, business, the arts and myriad other fields. The University comprises 25 institutions: 11 senior colleges, seven community colleges, William E. Macaulay Honors College, CUNY Graduate Center, Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism, CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies, CUNY School of Law, CUNY School of Professional Studies and CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy. The University serves more than 240,000 undergraduate and graduate students and awards 50,000 degrees each year.