Brooklyn College is a public institution located in the borough of Brooklyn in the state of New York. There are around 15,000 undergraduate students and 2,800 graduate students enrolled on the 35-acre campus, which is a part of the City University of New York system.
Hunter College was established in 1926 as a women's college and the City College of New York, which was established as a men's college, respectively. Hunter College became the first public coeducational liberal arts college in New York City in 1930 when the Brooklyn branches of Hunter College, then a women's college, and the City College of New York, then a men's college, were combined. Brooklyn Institution, which was initially tuition-free, suffered when the New York City government was on the verge of bankruptcy in 1975, and the college was forced to shut its downtown Brooklyn campus. Brooklyn College began charging tuition for the first time in 1976, when its Midwood campus remained intact and became the school's only campus.
The college's university system has been dubbed "the poor man's Harvard" because of its low cost of attendance. Among Brooklyn College's notable graduates are United States Senators, federal judges, United States financial chairpersons, Olympians, CEOs, and winners of Academy Awards, Emmy Awards, Pulitzer Prizes, and Nobel Prizes, to name a few.