ALEXANDER HAMILTON, pictured above. The man most responsible for making the United States a serious capitalist nation never collected his BA due to a little disturbance known as the American Revolution. He was the first Secretary of the Treasury, General Washington's Chief of Staff, and would probably have become president if he had not been shot by Aaron Burr, an act which gave rise to Columbia's enduring animus against Princeton.
JOHN JAY, a College alumus, was the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court after being Secretary of Foreign Affairs under the Articles of Confederation and representing New York in the Contintental Congress.
TEDDY ROOSEVELT attended the Law School but never finished, rushing off to serve in the NY State legislature at the tender age of 23.
The Rudy Giuliani of the 1900's, Republican New York mayor SETH LOW, was also president of Columbia and a graduate. He cut taxes, improved city services, and was the scourge of the notorious Tammany Hall political machine.
Columbia president NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER, holder of a Columbia BA, MA, and PhD, was a major national leader of the Republican Party and a good friend of Teddy Roosevelt. He was a delegate to every Republican convention from 1888 to 1936. Bio.
Republican NY governor THOMAS E. DEWEY and losing ("Dewey Defeats Truman") presidential candidate of 1948, was a member of the Law School class of 1925.President DWIGHT EISENHOWER was president of Columbia in the early fifties before being elected to the top job.
WHITAKER CHAMBERS, the defector from the American Communist Party who exposed famed traitor Alger Hiss and became the first of the great repenters from Marxism, was a College alumnus. Little known fact: JACK KEROUAC, celebrated hipster of pre-60's bohemia, eventually wised up and died defending Joe McCarthy and the Vietnam War, much to the surprise of his fans. He attended the College.
MILTON FRIEDMAN, who is a Nobel laureate, slayer of Keynesianism, and the single greatest economist of the post-WWII era, got his economics PhD from Columbia in 1946.
Current chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank ALAN GREENSPAN dropped out of the economics PhD program at Columbia in the early '50s for financial reasons and become a professional economist.
THOMAS SOWELL -- economist, author, and one of America's greatest policy intellectuals -- got his MA in economics in 1959.
Foreign policy tigress and Reagan's Ambassador to the U.N. JEANNE KIRKPATRICK got her PhD at the School of International and Public Affairs.
Current Republican Governor GEORGE PATAKI of NY is a member of the Law School class of '70.
Current Republican Senator SLADE GORTON of Washington State is a member of the Law School class of '53.
Current Republican Senator JUDD GREG of New Hampshire is a member of the College class of '69, the same class that produced the ultra-liberal Congressman Jerry Nadler of NY.
PAT BUCHANAN got his MA from the Columbia School of Journalism in 1962.
DAVID HOROWITZ, author of Radical Son, The Politics of Bad Faith, editor of Front Page Magazine, and a fiery critic of the left, is another ex-Marxist apostate, from the College class of 1959.
NORMAN PODHORETZ, editor of the magazine Commentary, has a BA from Columbia College.
DR. LAURA SCHLESSINGER, the radio moralist and defender of traditional values, has a Columbia PhD in Physiology.
DANIEL WATTENBERG, author and magazine writer, is a member of the College class of '83.
DENNIS PRAGER, radio talk-show host and polymath, has a graduate degree from the School of International Affairs.
author RALPH DE TOLEDANO.
Radio talk-show host STEVE WOLF.
TV personality BEN STEIN CC '66.
ROGER PILON, founder and director of the Cato Institute's Center for Constitutional Studies, is GS.
JEANNE KIRKPATRICK, the great anti-communist foreign policy expert, is AB Barnard, PhD Columbia.
Pundit MONA CHAREN - Barnard.
Columnist JEFFREY HART.
Former NYS Conservative party chair HENRY PAOLUCCI.
Representative ERIC CANTOR (VA-7) has an MS from Columbia.
MYRON MAGNET, editor of City Journal, the leading urban conservative magazine, has a BA, an MA, and a PhD from Columbia.
SCOTT MCCONNELL, editor of The American Conservative and former editorial-page editor of the New York Post, has a PhD in history from Columbia.