COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY is the oldest, richest, and most famous of all institutions of higher education in the New York metropolitan region and a member of the prestigious Ivy League. As Kings College, it received a royal charter on 31 October 1754 from George II of England "to promote liberal education" and to "prevent the growth of republican principles which prevail already too much in the colonies." But the college would produce a crop of American rebels, including John Jay, Alexander Hamilton, Robert Livingston, and Gouverneur Morris. In 1760, it moved to a three-acre site near the Hudson River in lower Manhattan on land donated by Trinity Church. In 1770, its School of Medicine awarded the first M.D. degrees in what would become the United States.

Between 1776 and 1783, when New York City was the headquarters for British military operations in the American Revolution, Kings College suspended all classes and its building became a military hospital. The college reopened in 1784 as Columbia, using a word that had recently been coined by patriotic poets. In 1813, the School of Medicine merged with the College of Physicians and Surgeons.

During the first half of the twentieth century, and especially during the presidency of Nicholas Murray Butler, Columbia became one of the worlds largest and most prominent universities. The Graduate School of Journalism began in 1912, the Graduate School of Business in 1916, the School of Dentistry in 1917, and the School of Public Health in 1921.