Columbia University (Columbia; officially Columbia University in the City of New York), established in 1754, is a private Ivy League research university in Upper Manhattan, New York City.

The eight members are Brown University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University, and Yale University.

The university has produced numerous distinguished alumni.

This is a partially sorted list of notable persons who have had ties to Columbia University.

In athletics, the Lions field varsity teams in 29 sports as a member of the NCAA Division I Ivy League conference.

The Columbia University Lions are the collective athletic teams and their members from Columbia University, an Ivy League institution in New York City, United States.

Columbia University (Columbia; officially Columbia University in the City of New York), established in 1754, is a private Ivy League research university in Upper Manhattan, New York City.

Over 120 colleges and universities are located in New York City, including Columbia University, New York University, and Rockefeller University, which have been ranked among the top universities in the world.

The university administers the Pulitzer Prize annually.

It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of American (Hungarian-born) Joseph Pulitzer who had made his fortune as a newspaper publisher, and is administered by Columbia University in New York City.

Its affiliates outside of the US are known as Columbia Global Centers.

Columbia Global Centers are research outposts established by Columbia University in eight locations around the world, as part of its initiative to further establish an international research university.

, Columbia's Alumni include three U.S. presidents, 29 foreign heads of state, 10 Justices of the United States Supreme Court, 95 Nobel laureates, 101 National Academy members, and 38 living billionaires.

Classes were initially held in July 1754 and were presided over by the college's first president, Dr. Samuel Johnson.

He was a major proponent of both Anglicanism and the philosophies of William Wollaston and George Berkeley in the colonies, founded and served as the first president of the Anglican King's College (renamed Columbia University following the American Revolutionary War), and was a key figure of the American Enlightenment.

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.

Columbia College is the oldest undergraduate college at Columbia University, situated on the university's main campus in Morningside Heights in the borough of Manhattan in New York City.

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.

Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, colloquially known as P&S and formerly Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, is a graduate school of Columbia University that is located in the Columbia University Irving Medical Center in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan.

Columbia contains the oldest college in the state of New York and is the fifth chartered institution of higher learning in the United States, making it one of nine colonial colleges founded prior to the Declaration of Independence.

New York's higher education network comprises approximately 200 colleges and universities, including Columbia University, Cornell University, New York University, the United States Military Academy, University of Rochester, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and Rockefeller University, which have been ranked among the top 40 in the nation and world.

Under the leadership of Low's successor, Nicholas Murray Butler, 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.

Butler was president of Columbia University, president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.

University president Seth Low moved the campus from 49th Street to its present location, a more spacious campus in the developing neighborhood of Morningside Heights.

Seth Low (January 18, 1850 – September 17, 1916) was an American educator and political figure who served as mayor of Brooklyn, as President of Columbia University, as diplomatic representative of the United States, and as 92nd Mayor of New York City.

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 was founded in 1946, drawing upon the resources of the faculties of political science, economics, and history.

The School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University (also known as SIPA) is an international affairs and public policy school and one of Columbia's graduate and professional schools in Morningside Heights, Manhattan, New York City.

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.

The Columbia University School of the Arts, also known simply as the School of the Arts or as SoA, is the graduate school of the university that offers programs in the fine arts.

Columbia is one of the fourteen founding members of the Association of American Universities and was the first school in the United States to grant the M.D. degree.

Lack of standardization damaged European universities' opinions of their American counterparts, however, and many American students attended graduate school in Europe instead of staying in the US. The presidents of Johns Hopkins, the University of Chicago, Columbia University, Harvard University, and the University of California sent a letter of invitation to nine other universities to meet at Chicago in February 1900 to promote and raise standards.

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 World War II. 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 School of General Studies, Columbia University (GS) is a highly selective liberal arts college and one of the undergraduate colleges of Columbia University within the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

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.

Founded in 1887, it has served as the Faculty and Department of Education of Columbia University since its affiliation in 1898.

Columbia is one of the fourteen founding members of the Association of American Universities and was the first school in the United States to grant the M.D. degree.

Early medical schools in North America that granted the Doctor of Medicine degrees were Columbia, Penn, Harvard, Maryland, and McGill.

In 1979, these faculties were merged into the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Columbia University (also known as GSAS) is a graduate school of the university that grants academic degrees in the arts and sciences, including M.A.s and Ph.D.s., in fields not covered by the university's professional or other schools.

The incident forced the resignation of Columbia's President, Grayson Kirk and the establishment of the University Senate.

Grayson Louis Kirk (October 12, 1903 – November 21, 1997) was president of Columbia University during the Columbia University protests of 1968.

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.

It has given rise to the names of many persons, places, objects, institutions and companies, e.g. Columbia University, the District of Columbia (the national capital of the United States) and the ship Columbia Rediviva, which would give its name to the Columbia River.

Though several schools within the university had admitted women for years, Columbia College first admitted women in the fall of 1983, after a decade of failed negotiations with Barnard College, the all-female institution affiliated with the university, to merge the two schools.

Founded in 1889 by Annie Nathan Meyer, who named it after Columbia University's 10th president, Frederick Barnard, it is one of the oldest women's colleges in the world.

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. Within the same year, the Division of Special Programs—later the School of Continuing Education, and now the School of Professional Studies—was established to reprise the former role of University Extension.

The School of Professional Studies is one of the schools composing Columbia University.

The campus was designed along Beaux-Arts principles by architects McKim, Mead, and White.

The firm's New York City buildings include Manhattan's former Pennsylvania Station, the Brooklyn Museum, and the main campus of Columbia University.