Brooklyn College is a public university in Brooklyn, New York. It is part of the City University of New York system and enrolls about 15,000 undergraduate and 2,800 graduate students on a 35-acre campus. Being New York City's first public coeducational liberal arts college, it was formed in 1930 by the merger of the Brooklyn branches of Hunter College, then a women's college, and of the City College of New York, then a men's college, both established in 1926. Initially tuition-free, Brooklyn College suffered from the New York City government's near-bankruptcy in 1975, when the college closed its campus in downtown Brooklyn. During 1976, with its Midwood campus intact and now its only campus, Brooklyn College charged tuition for the first time. The college's university system has been nicknamed "the poor man's Harvard". Prominent alumni of Brooklyn College include US senators, federal judges, US financial chairpersons, Olympians, CEOs, and recipients of Academy Awards, Emmy Awards, Pulitzer Prizes, and Nobel Prizes. College history Early decades Brooklyn College was founded in 1930. That year, as directed by the New York City Board of Higher Education on April 22, the college authorized the combination of the Downtown Brooklyn branches of Hunter College, at that time a women's college, and the City College of New York, then a men's college, both established in 1926. Meanwhile, Brooklyn College became the first public coeducational liberal arts college in New York City. The school opened in September 1930, holding separate classes for men and women until their junior years. Admission would require passing a stringent entrance exam. In 1932, architect Randolph Evans drafted a plan for the campus on a substantial plot that his employer owned in Brooklyn's Midwood section. Evans sketched a Georgian campus facing a central quadrangle, and anchored by a library building with a tower. Evans presented the sketches to the college's then president, Dr. William A. Boylan, who approved the layout. The land was bought for $1.6 million ($ today), and construction allotment was $5 million ($ today). Construction began in 1935. At the groundbreaking ceremony was Mayor Fiorello La Guardia and Brooklyn Borough President Raymond Ingersoll. In 1936, United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt visited and laid the gymnasium's cornerstone. The new campus opened for the fall 1937 semester. In the 1940s, Boylan, Ingersoll, Roosevelt and La Guardia each became namesake of a campus building. During the tenure of its second president,