High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Columbia University in the City of New York (Columbia University) is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country`s nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution. Today the University operates seven Columbia Global Centers overseas in Amman, Beijing, Istanbul, Paris, Mumbai, Santiago, and Nairobi.