City College was originally founded as the
Free Academy of the City of New York in 1847 by Townsend Harris to provide children of the poor
and immigrants access to higher education. It was subsequently named the
College of the City of New York, but that name
was later transferred to the complex of the municipally-owned colleges in New York City, which was the predecessor of the modern
City University of New York. At that time,
CCNY became officially
City College of the College of the City of New York, and later adopted its current name when CUNY
was formally established as the umbrella institution for New York City's municipal-college system in 1961. The name
City College of New York, however, is in general use.In the years when top-flight private schools were restricted to the children of the Protestant Establishment, thousands of brilliant individuals attended City College because they had no other
option. CCNY's academic excellence and status as a working-class school earned it the title "Harvard of the Proletariat." Even today, after
three decades of relative mediocrity, no other public college has produced as many Nobel laureates.In its heyday through the 1930s and 1950s, CCNY became known for its political radicalism. It was said that CCNY was the place
for arguments between Trotskyites and Stalinists. Alumni who were at City College in the mid-twentieth century said that City College in those days
made Berkeley in the 1960s
look like a school of conformity.In the late 1960s, black and Puerto Rican activists and white allies demanded that City College implement an aggressive affirmative action program. The administration of CCNY balked at the
idea, but instead came up with an open-admissions program under which any graduate of a NYC high school could matriculate. The
program opened doors to college to many who would not otherwise have been able to attend college, but came at the cost of City
College's academic standing and NYC's fiscal health.City College began charging admissions in the 1970s and abandoned open admissions in the 1990s.