Columbia University

Columbia University (officially Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private Ivy League research university in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It was established in 1754 as King's College by royal charter of George II of Great Britain. Columbia is the oldest college in the state of New York and the fifth chartered institution of higher learning in the country, making it one of nine colonial colleges founded before the Declaration of Independence. After the American Revolutionary War, King's College briefly became a state entity, and was renamed Columbia College in 1784. A 1787 charter placed the institution under a private board of trustees before it was renamed Columbia University in 1896 when the campus was moved from Madison Avenue to its current location in Morningside Heights occupying 32 acres (13 ha) of land. Columbia is one of the fourteen founding members of the Association of American Universities and was the first school in the United States to grant the M.D. degree.[