Cooper Union

The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, commonly known as Cooper Union, is a private college on Cooper Square in Lower Manhattan, New York City. Peter Cooper founded the institution in 1859 after learning about the government-supported École Polytechnique in France. The school was built on a radical new model of American higher education based on Cooper's belief that an education "equal to the best technology schools established" should be accessible to those who qualify, independent of their race, religion, sex, wealth or social status, and should be "open and free to all".

The college is divided into three schools: the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture, the School of Art, and the Albert Nerken School of Engineering. It offers undergraduate and master's degree programs exclusively in the fields of architecture, fine arts (undergraduate only), and engineering as well as a shared core curriculum in the humanities and social sciences.

The Cooper Union was one of very few American institutions of higher learning to offer a full-tuition scholarship to every admitted student, a practice it discontinued in 2014, instead offering a half-tuition scholarship to each admitted student. As of 2024^[update], nearly half of its undergraduate students were attending on a tuition-free basis. In September 2024 the school announced that for the next four years, all students (including current students) would not pay tuition for their senior year.

The Cooper Union was founded in 1859 by American industrialist Peter Cooper, one of the richest businessmen in the United States. Cooper was a workingman's son who had less than a year of formal schooling. Despite this, he designed and built America's first steam railroad engine and made a fortune with a glue factory and iron foundry. He was a principal investor and first president of the New York, Newfoundland and London Telegraph Company, which laid the first transatlantic telegraph cable, and once ran for President under the Greenback Party, becoming the oldest person ever nominated for the office by a political party.

Cooper's dream was to give talented young people the one privilege he lacked: a good education from an institution which was "open and free to all". To achieve these goals, Cooper designated the bulk of his wealth to The Cooper Union. According to The New York Times in 1863, "It was rare that those of limited means, however eager they might be to acquire a knowledge of some of the higher branches of education, could obtain tuition in studies not named in the regular course taught in our public schools." Discrimination based on ethnicity, religion, or sex was expressly prohibited.

Originally intended to be named simply "the Union", the Cooper Union began with adult education in night classes on the subjects of applied sciences and architectural drawing, as well as day classes primarily intended for women on the subjects of photography, telegraphy, typewriting and shorthand in what was called the college's Female School of Design. The early institution also had a free reading room open day and night, the first in New York City (predating the New York Public Library system), and a new four-year nighttime engineering college for men and a few women. In 1883, a five-year curriculum in chemistry was added as an alternative to the applied science (engineering) program. A daytime engineering college was added in 1902, thanks to funds contributed by Andrew Carnegie. Initial board members included Daniel F. Tiemann, John E. Parsons, Horace Greeley and William Cullen Bryant, and those who availed themselves of the institute's courses in its early days included Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Thomas Alva Edison and William Francis Deegan.

The Cooper Union's free classes have evolved into three schools: the School of Art, the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture, and the Albert Nerken School of Engineering. Since 1859, the Cooper Union has educated thousands of artists, architects, and engineers, many of them leaders in their fields.

After 1864 there were a few attempts to merge Cooper Union and Columbia University, but these were never realized.