Columbia University is a private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhattan, Columbia is the oldest institution of higher education in New York and the fifth-oldest institution of higher learning in the United States. It is one of nine colonial colleges founded prior to the Declaration of Independence, seven of which belong to the Ivy League. Columbia is one of the most prestigious universities in the world. Columbia was established by royal charter under George II of Great Britain. It was renamed Columbia College in 1784 following the American Revolution, and in 1787 was placed under a private board of trustees headed by former students Alexander Hamilton and John Jay. In 1896, the campus was moved to its current location in Morningside Heights and renamed Columbia University.

Columbia University is a private Ivy League school consisting of three undergraduate schools and thirteen graduate schools. At present, there are more than 3,000 professors, more than 20,000 students, and 250,000 alumni in more than 150 countries around the world. The school's annual budget is about 2 billion US dollars, and the library has a collection of 8.7 million books. Columbia College is the first undergraduate school in the United States to carry out general education, and it still maintains the most rigorous core courses in American universities. Its graduate school is famous for its academic excellence. Throughout the first half of the 20th century, Columbia University, along with Harvard University and the University of Chicago, was recognized as the top three in American higher education. In addition, the school's schools of education, medicine, law, business and journalism are among the best. The Pulitzer Prize awarded by its School of Journalism is the highest honor in American literature and journalism. Its School of Education is one of the largest and the most comprehensive in the curriculum in the world. Well-known alumni of Columbia University include 97 Nobel Prize winners, the largest number of universities in the world, 3 U.S. presidents, 9 U.S. Supreme Court justices, 20 billionaires, 26 Oscar winners, and 29 U.S. state governors.