Columbus State University (commonly referred to by locals as CSU) is a public institution of higher learning located in Columbus, Georgia. Founded as Columbus College in 1958, the university was established and is administered by the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia, and is fully accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. The university was first called Columbus College when it opened as a junior college in a hosiery mill in 1958. The college was staffed by fifteen faculty and staff and almost three hundred students attended courses in the first year. Columbus College relocated to the midtown area in 1963, building a campus defined by modern architecture on what was previously a dairy farm. The school was granted four-year status in 1965 with offerings of bachelor's and master's degrees. The first four-year class graduated in 1970. In 1996 the school was renamed Columbus State University as part of a program to restructure four-year institutions within the state's university system. The school now offers undergraduate and graduate programs in more than ninety academic disciplines.