Cogswell College

Cogswell Polytechnical College

Type	Private University
Established	1887
President	Deborah Snyder
Chief Executive Officer	Janis Paulson
Administrative staff	17 full-time 53 part-time
Undergraduates	483 full-time 128 part-time
Location	San Jose, California, USA
Colors	Orange and Silver
Mascot	Dragon
Website	www.cogswell.edu

Cogswell Polytechnical College is a private for-profitcollege located in San Jose, California. It holds accreditation through the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC). Cogswell had a small student body of 315 full-time and 148 part-time students in 2013. Programs at Cogswell range from Digital Media to Engineering, they specializes in digital animation and video game design. Cogswell Polytechnical College was the first technical training institution in the West.

Cogswell College was founded as a high school on March 19, 1887, by Dr. and Mrs. Henry Cogswell in San Francisco. It opened in August 1888, offering technical classes for boys and business classes for girls. On June 30, 1930, it became a technical college. It was the first technical training institution in the West.

The original campus building was occupied in 1888 in the Mission District in San Francisco. When the 1906 earthquake partially destroyed the campus, the College relocated across the street to an existing home on the property. After the City of San Francisco purchased some of the land by eminent domain in 1917, a new building was constructed at Folsom Street and 26th Street in San Francisco, to house the school.

In 1974, having outgrown the existing campus, the college moved to a location at Stockton and California Streets. In 1985, it moved to Cupertino, where it remained until 1994 (its old San Francisco building became a Ritz Carlton hotel). In 1993, the college purchased a campus in Sunnyvale, which it moved to in 1994. This campus was sold in 2012, and in 2015 the college moved to a leased building in San Jose.

In 2010 Cogswell was acquired by Palm Ventures. The following year Charles "Chuck" House, executive director of the Media X program at Stanford University, became chancellor. Deborah Snyder was appointed president of the college in 2014.