Question: What founded the oldest undergraduate college at Columbia University that is apart of the belief that New Yorkers needed a university designed for young men who would be admitted based on merit?

Context articles: List of Columbia University alumni
Columbia College, Columbia University
History of New York University
African Dorcas Association
Judith Shapiro
Seattle University College of Arts and Sciences
Thomas More College (New York City)
Civilian Conservation Corps
Seven Sisters (colleges)
Columbia University traditions

This is a sorted list of notable persons who are alumni of Columbia University, New York City.
 For further listing of notable Columbians see: Notable alumni at Columbia College of Columbia University; Columbia University School of General Studies; Barnard College; Columbia Law School; Columbia Business School; Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism; Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation; Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons; Columbia University Graduate School of Education (Teachers College); Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science; Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences; Columbia University School of Professional Studies; Columbia University School of the Arts; and the School of International and Public Affairs.
Columbia College is the oldest undergraduate college at Columbia University, situated on the university's main campus in Morningside Heights in the borough of Manhattan in New York City.
 It was founded in 1754 by the Church of England as King's College, receiving a Royal Charter from King George II of Great Britain.
 Columbia College is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York and the fifth oldest in the United States.
 The college is distinctive for its comprehensive Core Curriculum.
 Columbia College is highly selective in its admissions.
 For the class of 2021, the college accepted 5.8% of its applicants, the second lowest acceptance rate in the Ivy League behind only Harvard.
The history of New York University begins in the early 19th century.
 A group of prominent New York City residents from the city's landed class of merchants, bankers, and traders established NYU on April 18, 1831.
 These New Yorkers believed the city needed a university designed for young men who would be admitted based on merit, not birthright or social class.
 Albert Gallatin, Secretary of the Treasury under Thomas Jefferson, described his motivation in a letter to a friend: "It appeared to me impossible to preserve our democratic institutions and the right of universal suffrage unless we could raise the standard of general education and the mind of the laboring classes nearer to a level with those born under more favorable circumstances."
 To the school's founders, the classical curriculum offered at American colonial colleges needed to be combined with a more modern and practical education.
 Educators in Paris, Vienna, and London were beginning to consider a new form of higher learning, where students began to focus not only on the classics and religion, but also modern languages, philosophy, history, political economy, mathematics, and physical science; so students might become merchants, bankers, lawyers, physicians, architects, and engineers.
 Although the new school would be non-denominational – unlike many American colonial colleges, which at the time offered classical educations centered on theology – the founding of NYU was also a reaction by evangelical Presbyterians to what they perceived as the Episcopalianism of Columbia College.
The African Dorcas Association was a black women's community aid society founded in New York City in January 1828.
 The women of this group sewed clothes for New York's black children so that they would have appropriate attire for school.
 They were also one of the first societies where "women met independently and without the supervision of men."
 Through this work, the members of the African Dorcas Association hoped to make education more accessible for black youth in New York City.
 After just one year, this organization distributed 168 articles of clothing to school children.
 They became a prominent contributor to encourage young Black children to attend schools.
 New Yorkers surrounding the organization did not find it appropriate for black women to be educated or involved in societal issues in this way, yet, despite the opposition, the African Dorcas Association thrived.
 The society remained in operation into the 1830s.
Judith R. Shapiro (born January 24, 1942) is a former President of Barnard College, a liberal arts college for women affiliated with Columbia University; as President of Barnard, she was also an academic dean within the university.
 She was also a professor of anthropology at Barnard.
 Shapiro became Barnard's 6th president in 1994 after a teaching career at Bryn Mawr College where she was Chair of the Department of Anthropology.
 After serving as Acting Dean of the Undergraduate College in 1985-6, she was Provost, the chief academic officer, from 1986 until 1994.
 Debora L. Spar was appointed to replace Shapiro, effective July 1, 2008.
Seattle University College of Arts and Sciences in Seattle, Washington is the oldest undergraduate and graduate college affiliated with Seattle University.
 The College offers 41 undergraduate majors, 36 undergraduate minors, 6 graduate degrees, and 1 post-graduate certificate.
Thomas More College was a coeducational, undergraduate college of liberal arts and sciences that was open from the fall of 1964 until it merged with Fordham College at Rose Hill in 1974.
 It offered arts and science programs for women as well as programs, such as drama, for men that were unavailable at Fordham University, which, at that time, only admitted men into its undergraduate programs.
 While the undergraduate school of Fordham University was all men's, many of Fordham's graduate schools, such as the School of Education, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Law School, College of Pharmacy and School of Social Service were coeducational.
 Thomas More College, however, provided women the opportunity to earn an undergraduate liberal arts degree.
The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was a public work relief program that operated from 1933 to 1942 in the United States for unemployed, unmarried men from relief families as part of the New Deal.
 Originally for young men ages 18–25, it was eventually expanded to young men ages 17–28.
 Robert Fechner was the first director of the agency, succeeded by James McEntee following Fechner's death.
 The CCC was a major part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal that provided unskilled manual labor jobs related to the conservation and development of natural resources in rural lands owned by federal, state and local governments.
 The CCC was designed to provide jobs for young men, and to relieve families who had difficulty finding jobs during the Great Depression in the United States.
 At the same time, it implemented a general natural resource conservation program in every state and territory.
 Maximum enrollment at any one time was 300,000.
 Over the course of its nine years in operation, 3 million young men participated in the CCC, which provided them with shelter, clothing, and food, together with a small wage of $30 (about $547 in 2015) a month ($25 of which had to be sent home to their families).
The Seven Sisters is a loose association of seven liberal arts colleges in the Northeastern United States that are historically women's colleges.
 Five of the seven institutions continue to offer all-female undergraduate programs: Barnard College, Bryn Mawr College, Mount Holyoke College, Smith College, and Wellesley College.
 Vassar College has been co-educational since 1969.
 Radcliffe College and its all-male coordinate school Harvard College (both of which were part of Harvard University) effectively merged in 1977, although Radcliffe did not take its current form as the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study until 1999.
 Barnard College was Columbia University's women's liberal arts undergraduate college until its all-male coordinate school Columbia College went co-ed in 1983; to this day, Barnard continues to be an all-women's undergraduate college affiliated with Columbia.
Columbia University has developed many traditions over its 258-year-long existence, most of them associated with its oldest undergraduate division, Columbia College.