This chapter focuses on the period prior to City University of New York's (CUNY) establishment in 1961 and at the colleges that would initially comprise the university. The establishment of The Free Academy in 1847, later to be named the City College of New York (CCNY), was the first free public college in the country. The chapter examines the Female Normal and High School, established as the first free teacher's college in the nation in 1869. It also focuses on the first community colleges— Staten Island, Bronx, and Queensborough— that were formed in the 1950s. In any discussion of public higher education in New York City in the 19th and early 20th centuries, Hunter College is almost always paired with CCNY as one of the only two institutions that represented real opportunities for citizens of modest means to access higher education. Brooklyn College was officially established in 1930 as the first publicly funded coeducational institution in New York City.,,.