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I do not ""hate"" Columbia College; I hate seeing students waste their time. 
Here's a fact: Columbia College is unranked by U.S. News and World Report and by other major publishers of institutional rankings. This is because it is open-admissions. There's nothing wrong with Wikipedia publishing an article on this school. There is something wrong with not mentioning the problems of an open-admissions art school, and there is something even more wrong with the grossly commercial discussion of its gift shop. Wikipedia is not a brochure.  
Being the largest art school in the country is not a mark of distinction. In fact, the fundamental problem with Columbia College is related to the quality it touts: it's big. It's big because it does not limit its enrollments. There is a reason for that. It's not because it warmly and fuzzily and democratically embraces people from all walks of life. If it did, it wouldn't be so expensive. It does not limit its enrollments because it wants as much tuition money as it can get. 
Now, the members of its administration, its PR department, and its faculty are very careful to do everything to avoid this reality: in order to make art, one needs talent. Talent is, by definition, inborn and innate. You don't get it by acquiring skill. You don't get it by purchasing the most expensive camera, or the most expensive education money can buy. You're born with it, and by late adolescence, if you've got it, it will make itself apparent. 
Therefore, any student who actually has talent should strongly consider applying to a closed-admissions art school, one that requires a portfolio or other demonstration of work. These schools are also very expensive, but it's possible to get various kinds of financial aid. Once in the program, the talented painter, photographer, writer, or what have you will be surrounded by other talented students. That creates an entirely different atmosphere, one that keeps the student on his or her toes, as it were, and provides a sense of proportion and a sense that other students might be better. 
You might wonder why such an admission process demonstrates talent. It's because talent does not hide itself: it is apparent to experts in the field. 
There are two ways in which Columbia covers up this fact: by telling students that if they're showing up and willing to pay big bucks, then they're talented. It's easy to pass off that notion on a generation of kidsactually two generationsbrought up on the consumerist notion that he or she (and it's usually a he) who buys the most expensive camera has the most talent. 
The other means at Columbia's disposal is that for the last thirty years, children have been taught that self-esteem is the most important quality they can develop. In a misguided attempt to develop a false sense of self-esteem, schools have simply stopped talking about talent. They might, at times call it merit, but that, too, is a bad word. So an entire generation has grown up thinking that if you have the ""drive to succeed,"" you'll succeed. The problem: what if you've get the drive to succeed, but reaching down within yourself, you find you've got nothing to express?
If you think Columbia loves you, try falling behind on your tuition. Good luck."