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Columbia University

New York, NY

School Website

How Colleges Spend Money

The graph below shows the Administrative Cost Per Student at Columbia University. This is a measure of expenditures per student for day-today executive operations of the institution, not including student services or academic management.

Visit www.HowCollegesSpendMoney.com to learn more about spending in higher education, including instructional costs, student services costs, and more.

FIRE Speech Rating

Columbia University earns a Yellow speech code rating from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE).

A yellow light institution maintains policies that could be interpreted to suppress protected speech or policies that, while clearly restricting freedom of speech, restrict relatively narrow categories of speech.

FIRE evaluates colleges and universities' "speech codes," or written free speech policies, for how well they protect students' freedom of speech. ACTA believes an institution's commitment to free expression correlates with its commitment to academic excellence, facilitated through the free exchange of ideas.

Oases of Excellence

Columbia University has an ACTA Oasis of Excellence on campus. ACTA’s Oases of Excellence initiative highlights academic centers that prepare students for informed citizenship in a free society by maintaining the highest academic standards, introducing students to the best of the foundational arts and sciences, teaching American heritage, and ensuring free inquiry into a range of intellectual viewpoints. Learn more about Oases of Excellence here.

Center on Law and Liberty


Chicago Principles

Colleges and universities that have adopted the Chicago Principles on Freedom of Expression (or substantially similar statements) are committed "to the preservation and celebration of the freedom of expression as an essential element of the University’s culture.” An open marketplace of ideas on campus fosters intellectual development and prepares graduates for the discussion and debate that informs and sustains a free society. Colleges and universities that have adopted the Chicago Principles on Freedom of Expression (or substantially similar statements) are committed "to the preservation and celebration of the freedom of expression as an essential element of the University’s culture.” An open marketplace of ideas on campus fosters intellectual development and prepares graduates for the discussion and debate that informs and sustains a free society.

According to its mission statement, "Columbia University is one of the world's most important centers of research and at the same time a distinctive and distinguished learning environment for undergraduates and graduate students in many scholarly and professional fields. The University recognizes the importance of its location in New York City and seeks to link its research and teaching to the vast resources of a great metropolis. It seeks to attract a diverse and international faculty, staff, and student body, to support research and teaching on global issues, and to create academic relationships with many countries and regions. It expects all areas of the University to advance knowledge and learning at the highest level and to convey the products of its efforts to the world." [Source]

Curriculum last evaluated: 11/14/2023

2021-22 enrollment and tuition data, and four-year graduation rates for first-time, full-time freshmen who enrolled in Fall 2012, are derived from the National Center for Education Statistics’ College Navigator.