The business orientation of Baruch College has its beginnings in 1907, when CCNY began to offer individual business courses. By 1912, the City College Board of Trustees, with the support of the New York State Chamber of Commerce, sought to establish a business school in the Free Academy building. In 1917, the new vocational division of the college began offering evening classes in the partly renovated building, and two years later the CCNY School of Business and Civic Administration was established on 23rd Street. The new school offered both undergraduate and graduate degrees in business, although a number of the 2,833 students who attended classes in the first year were there only to take a few classes that would help them find jobs or attended evening classes, working part-time toward a certificate in accounting.
