Founded in 1961, the Graduate Center is the doctorate-granting institution of the City University of New York (CUNY). In this nationally unique consortium of over 1700 faculty members, a core faculty of 125 Graduate Center appointments is supplemented by over 1600 additional faculty members drawn from throughout CUNY's eleven senior colleges and New York City's leading cultural and scientific institutions. With 4000 doctoral students, they pursue a shared enterprise of expanding the boundaries of knowledge in over 30 doctoral programs and 7 master's programs in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences. The recently released Faculty Scholarly Productivity Index placed ten of the Graduate Center’s Ph.D. programs among the top ten in the country, and six were ranked in the top five. In the “broad” category of humanities, the Graduate Center was fourth; the first three were Harvard, Yale, and Princeton.

Augmenting this enterprise are 29 research centers and institutes focused on areas of compelling social, civic, cultural, and scientific concerns. Also affiliated with the institution are three University Center programs: the CUNY Baccalaureate Program through which undergraduates can earn bachelor's degrees by taking courses at any of the CUNY colleges; the CUNY School of Professional Studies and the associated Joseph S. Murphy Institute for Worker Education and Labor Studies; and the recently established CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, which offers a master's degree in journalism.

In addition, Continuing Education and Public Programs extends the Graduate Center's intellectual and cultural resources to the general public, offering access to a wide range of events, including lectures, symposia, performances, and workshops.

Since 1999, the Graduate Center's vibrant campus has been housed in a nine-story landmark building at 365 Fifth Avenue in midtown Manhattan. Formerly home to the B. Altman Department Store, the building has been redesigned as a new, state-of-the-art facility to meet the specific needs of a 21st-century institution of advanced learning.

Due to the consortial nature of doctoral study at the Graduate Center, courses take place at the Graduate Center and at CUNY colleges. For the most part, courses in the social sciences, humanities, and mathematics, and courses in the sciences requiring no laboratory work convene at the Graduate Center. Science courses requiring laboratory work, courses for the clinical doctorates, and courses in business, criminal justice, engineering, and social welfare convene on CUNY college campuses.

Since 1965, more than 9,600 students have earned doctorates from the Graduate Center, and they are now among the leaders in our nation's teaching and research efforts, whether at universities, in the nonprofit sector, in business, or in government. By preparing a group of highly qualified professionals from diverse backgrounds to assume leadership roles in a variety of fields, the Graduate Center, through its faculty members, programs, and research centers, is filling an urgent need in the city, the state, and the nation.