Ask the Chatbot Games & Quizzes History & Society Science & Tech Biographies Animals & Nature Geography & Travel Arts & Culture ProCon Money Videos
Columbia University
Table of Contents
Introduction References & Edit History Quick Facts & Related Topics
Images
Nassau Hall, King's College
Read Next
Close up of a hand placing a ballot in a ballot box. Election vote voter voting
Have Any U.S. Presidents Decided Not to Run For a Second Term?
Washington, D.C. locator map.
What State Is Washington, D.C. In?
The United States Supreme Court building, Washington, D.C.
14 Questions About Government in the United States Answered
Bar graph of the United States Death Toll during major events. Infogram chart.
U.S. Death Toll During Major Events
The Battle of New Orleans, by E. Percy Moran, c. 1910. Andrew Jackson, War of 1812.
26 Decade-Defining Events in U.S. History
Discover
Aurochs. Bos primigenius. Skeleton. Extinct animal. Skeleton of an Aurochs, an extinct wild ox.
6 Animals We Ate Into Extinction
Dancers at a Cinco de Mayo festival at the Mission District, San Francisco, California. (Photo dated 2019.) holidays
Is Cinco de Mayo Mexico's Independence Day?
Close up of books. Stack of books, pile of books, literature, reading. Homepage 2010, arts and entertainment, history and society
12 Novels Considered the “Greatest Book Ever Written”
Cathedrale St.Jean in Lyon, France has a 14th-century astronomical clock that shows religious feast days till the year 2019; Perpetual Calendar
Ten Days That Vanished: The Switch to the Gregorian Calendar
Poker game. Card game. Royal Flush in poker. Hearts suit gambling
Poker Hands Ranked
Portrait of a mountain gorilla at a short distance. gorilla close up portrait.The mountain gorilla (Gorilla beringei beringei)
Falling Stars: 10 of the Most Famous Endangered Species
Happy, smiling, flying pig
7 Everyday English Idioms and Where They Come From

Columbia University: Facts & Related Content

verifiedCite
While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions.
Select Citation Style
Share
Share to social media
URL
https://www.britannica.com/facts/Columbia-University
Written and fact-checked by
The Information Architects of Encyclopaedia Britannica

The Information Architects maintain a master list of the topics included in the corpus of  Encyclopædia Britannica, and create and manage the relationships between them.
The Information Architects of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Campus protests flare on a smaller scale than last spring, but with higher stakes • May 13, 2025, 12:11 AM ET (AP)
Turkish Tufts University student back in Boston after release from Louisiana detention center • May 10, 2025, 11:02 PM ET (AP)
Columbia suspends over 65 students following pro-Palestinian protest in library • May 9, 2025, 9:21 PM ET (AP)
Turkish Tufts University student released from Louisiana immigration detention center • May 9, 2025, 8:33 PM ET (AP)

Facts

Also Known As Columbia College • King’s College
Date 1754 - present
Notable Alumni Nicholas Murray Butler • John Oliver Killens • Chelsea Clinton • Robert A.M. Stern • Marie Maynard Daly • Hermann Joseph Muller • Thomas Merton • Tracy K. Smith • Amiri Baraka • Melvin Schwartz • Gregory Rabassa • Marie Ponsot • Lionel Trilling • Richard Axel • Bernard Ogilvie Dodge • John Erskine • James Rainwater • Dickinson Woodruff Richards • Barack Obama • Jack Kerouac • Wendy Carlos • Milton Friedman • Irving Langmuir • Mikheil Saakashvili • Caroline Kennedy • Joseph Campbell • Langston Hughes • James Franco • Terry McMillan • Roy Cohn • Lynn Conway • Isaac Asimov • Sigrid Nunez • Bill de Blasio • Antony Blinken • Upton Sinclair • Ruth Westheimer • Kate McKinnon • Neil Gorsuch • Margaret Mead • Ed Harris • Carolee Schneemann • Joan Mitchell • Alan Greenspan • Eric Garcetti • Brian Dennehy • Neil deGrasse Tyson • Madeleine Albright • Paul Auster • John F. Clauser • Warren Buffett • Neil Postman • Laurie Anderson • Mirra Komarovsky • Paul Sereno • Pat Buchanan • Peter Eisenman • Paula Fox • Derek Parfit • Mary Jo White • Edward L. Thorndike • Linda Nochlin • Lawrence Ferlinghetti • Marshall Sahlins • Pat Boone • Margaret Bourke-White • William Goldman • Ursula Burns • Eric Holder • Zhou Long • Ernesto Cardenal • Francisco J. Ayala • Robert Moses • Claudia Rankine • Robert Kraft • Michael Mukasey • Kathryn Bigelow • Dorothea Lange • Shirley Chisholm • Robert Millikan • Augusto Boal • Sidney Altman • Nawal El Saadawi • Ursula K. Le Guin • Louise Glück • Harold Varmus • Sheikha al-Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani • Frances Perkins • Allen Ginsberg • Baruch S. Blumberg • Hans Blix • Mark Van Doren • Simon Kuznets • James S. Coleman • Robert C. Merton • Julian Seymour Schwinger • Baruj Benacerraf • Francisco Ayala • C. Vann Woodward • John Ostrom • Clarence H. White • Louis Ignarro • Elizabeth Coatsworth • John Kander • Donald Byrd • Kate Millett • Benjamin Spock • Donald Judd • Jeane Kirkpatrick • Daniel D. Tompkins • Constance Baker Motley • Anthony Hecht • Edward Sapir • Martha Coolidge • Hyman G. Rickover • Gordon Gould • Arthur Ashkin • A.L. Kroeber • Lou Gehrig • Dan Flavin • Kenneth J. Arrow • Kenneth Koch • Thérèse Bonney • James Renwick • Isidor Isaac Rabi • Bernard Malamud • Aaron Douglas • John Ashbery • Henry Clay Folger • William Schuman • Carl Rogers • Martin Lewis Perl • Robert H. Grubbs • Virginia Apgar • Walker Percy • Kiran Desai • Robert William Fogel • Arthur M. Schlesinger • Gilberto Freyre • William Kunstler • Joan Tower • George Weinberg • Sharon Olds • T. Berry Brazelton • John Howard Northrop • Herbert A. Hauptman • Li Ruigang • Alvin E. Roth • Daniel Bell • Jim Jarmusch • Terrence McNally • Richard Howard • Dorothy Constance Stratton • Christina H. Paxson • Ad Reinhardt • Claire Trevor • William Colby • Richard Kostelanetz • Leon Max Lederman • Norman Foster Ramsey • Louise McManus • Michael Rumaker • Val Logsdon Fitch • Dorothy Canfield Fisher • Ali Al Amin Mazrui • Story Musgrave • Konrad E. Bloch • Alfred Corn • Howard Dietz • Romare Bearden • Louis Dudek • Jack Tworkov • Fay-Cooper Cole • Anthony Perkins • Roald Hoffmann • Gerard Barnes Lambert • Oswald Mbuyiseni Mtshali • William S. Knowles • Henry Demarest Lloyd • Arno Penzias • Barbara Christian • Melvin Tolson • Phoebus Levene • George Wald • Edward Calvin Kendall • Mike Gravel • Charles Richard Drew • Joseph Wood Krutch • Leon N. Cooper • Rebecca Lancefield • Albert Payson Terhune • Frederick Mark Becket • José Raúl Capablanca • Walter Henry Zinn
Related People Nicholas Murray Butler • Seth Low • Frederick Barnard

Photos

Nassau Hall, King's College
See All Images →

Related Topics and References

Topics