Separate undergraduate programs for men and women combine traditional liberal arts and sciences studies with an extensive Jewish Studies program. In 2001, undergraduate enrollment was approximately 2,000. The undergraduate programs operate according to the Modern Orthodox philosophy of Torah U'Madda - torah and secular studies.
Coeducational graduate and professional programs are offered in numerous fields including medicine, at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and law, at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law.
Rabbinic training and instruction in Jewish music are offered through Yeshiva's affiliate, the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary.
Yeshiva Eitz Chayyim, a cheder-style school was founded on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in 1886. It had little to no secular studies curriculum. It merged with Yeshivas Rabbi Isaac Elchanon (founded in 1897 for high school and undergraduate level Talmudic studies) in 1915. Simultaneously, Bernard (Dov) Revel, Yeshiva's legendary first President, founded the first dual curriculum high school- the Talmudical Academy (now known as The Marsha Stern Talmudical Academy-MSTA), blazing a path to what has become the norm in Orthodox Jewish circles. Yeshiva College was founded in 1928 as an expansion to stem the tide of TA graduates to secular colleges such as NYU and City College of New York. Later that year, Yeshiva moved to its current location in Washington Heights (the alternative location was in Morningside Heights, near the current location of the Jewish Theological Seminary and Columbia University. Yeshiva attained university status in 1946, under its second President, Samuel Belkin. In 1970, Yeshiva revised its charter to become a secular university, reducing the status of RIETS (Rabbi Isaac Elchanon Theological Seminary) and MSTA to "affiliate", despite vigorous student and faculty protest. In 2002, Yeshiva again broke with tradition by appointing a layman (non-ordained rabbi), Richard Joel, as its fourth president, again over sustained student and faculty protest. Yeshiva currently has over a dozen affiliated schools, some of which were mentioned above.
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