Touro College is a private Jewish university in New York City, New York. It was founded by Rabbi Bernard Lander in 1971 and named for Rabbi Isaac Touro and his son, American businessmanJudah Touro. It is a part of the Touro College and University System. Its mission includes a strong focus on "transmit and perpetuat the Jewish heritage." The college has about 7,000 undergraduates, with a teaching staff of 1,335, of which over a third are full-time. It has about 4,000 graduate students. About 70% of undergraduates and nearly 80% of graduate students are female. Among undergraduates, some 4% are Asian, 15% are black, 8% are Hispanic and 64% are white. The four-year graduation rate is 46%.
History
Touro College was founded by Orthodox rabbi and academic sociologist Bernard Lander, who named it for Isaac Touro, an Orthodox rabbi, and his son Judah Touro, a rich businessman and philanthropist. Lander's aim was to provide education for Jewish people, combining professional courses with Torah studies. The college received its charter as a private, four-year liberal arts college from the Board of Regents of the State of New York in 1970, and opened its doors in 1971. In its first year it had thirty-five students, all men. A section for women was opened in 1974. The college was accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education in 1976; accreditation was reaffirmed in 2015. In the 1970s the school enrolled in its adult-education program large numbers of old people, among them many who could neither write nor read English, and was investigated by federal and state authorities who believed that this was done mainly to obtain grants for tuition. The college expanded to include schools of law, education, social work, osteopathic medicine, pharmacy, and dentistry. In 2007, at least two school employees were found in an internal college audit to have accepted bribes to change grades and provide fake degrees. They were handed over for prosecution by the college, and were subsequently convicted and imprisoned. Lander remained president until his death in 2010, and was succeeded by Alan Kadish.
Ranking
Touro College is ranked #293-#381 in National Universities. Schools are ranked according to their performance across a set of widely accepted indicators of excellence. and #1 on the Time/MONEY's Value-Added All-Stars ranking.
