Admissions

Architecture. Art. Engineering. NYC.

The Cooper Union is where creative people from all backgrounds come to ask critical questions to advance the public good.

Learning at Cooper will take you beyond the classroom, lab, or studio. You’ll be encouraged to collaborate and experiment, and to engage with the flux of ideas and movements that make New York City a vital cultural center.

Three renowned professional schools specializing in architecture, art, and engineering offer rigorous courses of study, while a shared core curriculum in the humanities and social sciences provides the historical and theoretical foundation for discovering your creative potential and applying it in pursuit of a just and sustainable society.

Founded by inventor, industrialist and philanthropist Peter Cooper in 1859, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art offers education in art, architecture and engineering, as well as courses in the humanities and social sciences.
“My feelings, my desires, my hopes, embrace humanity throughout the world,” Peter Cooper proclaimed in a speech in 1853. He looked forward to a time when, “knowledge shall cover the earth as waters cover the great deep.”
From its beginnings, Cooper Union was a unique institution, dedicated to founder Peter Cooper's proposition that education is the key not only to personal prosperity but to civic virtue and harmony.
Peter Cooper wanted his graduates to acquire the technical mastery and entrepreneurial skills, enrich their intellects and spark their creativity, and develop a sense of social justice that would translate into action.