Founded in 1854, Columbia College remains the 11th oldest women's
college in the United States. Columbia Female College officially
opened in 1859 with an initial student body of 188. When General Sherman and his troops marched through Columbia in 1865, the school had to close and was
not reopened until 1873. The name changed to Columbia College in 1905 after it was moved to its present site in North Columbia in
1904.From 1940 to 1951 presidents Guilds and Greene oversaw Columbia College as well as Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina.During the 1980s an evening college was established in which both female and male students could be educated. Recently the
U.S. News & World Report has ranked Columbia College as one of the top ten
regional liberal arts colleges in the South.