Myth: Columbia’s School of General Studies was created after World War II as a school to educate returning veterans.
Fact: The University’s history of accommodating nontraditional students who are older than traditional undergraduates or who only take classes part-time now spans more than a century. By the 1920s, Columbia operated a program called University Extension, which granted bachelor’s degrees.
At the end of World War II, the U.S. government passed the GI Bill, which promised to pay full tuition to veterans attending college to earn undergraduate degrees. Naturally, droves of returning veterans enrolled in institutions of higher education. History professor Robert McCaughey, author of “Stand, Columbia: A History of Columbia University,” attests that the GI Bill “represented an important post-war revenue stream” for the University. This was part of the reason administrators expanded and redesigned the extension program, renaming it the School of General Studies in 1949.
Columbia was concerned that the influx of students would overwhelm Core Curriculum classes, according to McCaughey, and establishing GS allowed for a separate undergraduate program that did not require the Core. GS hired a separate faculty, which in some cases was assimilated into the college faculty. Currently, GS students enroll in Columbia College’s Core classes. But regardless of its evolution over time, the School of General Studies remains an essential entry point for nontraditional students seeking an undergraduate education.
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