New School University is an innovative educational institution founded as a bastion of intellectual and artistic freedom. Centered in the heart of New York City's Greenwich Village, at the New School, education is seen as a tool to produce positive changes in society. The University excels at providing transformative ideas and skills to its students. Education and research at New School University are guided by a linkage of theory and practice, and members of the University community are committed to working toward a more equitable, peaceful world.

The New School pioneered the idea of lifelong University-level education for adult students. Today, New School University is a thriving, unique university with eight divisions: The New School, Graduate Faculty of Political and Social Science, Parsons School of Design, Robert J. Milano Graduate School of Management and Urban Policy, Eugene Lang College, Mannes College of Music, Actors Studio Drama School and the Jazz and Contemporary Music Program. With over 7,000 students pursuing graduate and undergraduate degree programs, New School University is celebrated for its social science, humanities, art and public policy initiatives and continues to grow and transform as one of the leading arts education resources in the nation.

The founders of the New School supported controversial ideas and opposed the curtailment of free inquiry at their own universities. Visionaries all, they probably could not have foreseen that their "new school" would take root and thrive, much less grow into a large, diversified urban university that would continue to embrace their mission. That this occurred testifies not only to the prescience of their original idea, but also to the dedication of many hundreds of innovative teachers, committed employees and generous patrons who have sustained it and built upon it for more than eight decades.