The Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY) brings together graduate education, advanced research, and public programming to midtown Manhattan hosting 4,600 students, 33 doctoral programs, 7 master's programs, and 30 research centers and institutes. A core faculty of approximately 150 Graduate Center appointments is supplemented by over 1,800 additional faculty members drawn from throughout CUNY's eleven senior colleges and New York City's cultural and scientific institutions.

The thirty research centers and institutes focus on areas of social, civic, cultural, and scientific concerns. Also affiliated with the institution are four University Center programs: the CUNY Baccalaureate Program through which undergraduates can earn bachelor's degrees by taking courses at any of the CUNY colleges; the CUNY School of Professional Studies and the associated Joseph S. Murphy Institute for Worker Education and Labor Studies; the recently established CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, which offers a master's degree in journalism; and Macaulay's Honor College. In addition, the Graduate Center extends its intellectual and cultural resources to the general public, offering access to a wide range of events, including lectures, symposia, performances, and workshops.

Since 1999, the Graduate Center's campus has been housed in a nine-story landmark building at 365 Fifth Avenue in midtown Manhattan. Formerly home to the B. Altman Department Store, the building was redesigned as a new, state-of-the-art facility.

Due to the consortial nature of doctoral study at the Graduate Center, courses take place at the Graduate Center and at CUNY colleges. For the most part, courses in the social sciences, humanities, and mathematics, and courses in the sciences requiring no laboratory work convene at the Graduate Center. Science courses requiring laboratory work, courses for the clinical doctorates, and courses in business, criminal justice, engineering, and social welfare convene on CUNY college campuses.

Since 1965, more than ten thousand students have earned doctorates from the Graduate Center.