Greenwich Village to Hollywood: NYU plans L.A. extension program for film

University joins other outside colleges setting up satellite operations in the city

NYU is expanding to L.A., bringing 40 film-and-television undergraduate students to industry hub.
NYU is expanding to L.A., bringing 40 film-and-television undergraduate students to industry hub.

Long a competitor to Los Angeles-based film schools, New York University is looking to establish its own presence in Hollywood.

NYU plans to rent space in Los Angeles to launch a program next fall for about 40 film-and-television undergraduate students, The Chronicle of Higher Education reported.

Students will spend most of their days at internships, and will also take night classes, school officials said. But unlike UCLA’s Extension program, for instance, they won’t be able to earn film degrees.

NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, whose acclaimed alumni includes directors Martin Scorsese and Joel Cohen, competes with USC and UCLA for students interested in film and arts. NYU officials are hoping that having a branch in L.A. could give the East Coast an edge.

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“Being a part of the Hollywood industry, being part of those networks – it’s one thing to go and make visits, it’s another thing to be a physical entity located there, essentially an embassy,” said Jason E. Lane, interim dean of the University at Albany’s School of Education, who studied the expansion of universities.

NYU is renting instead of purchasing property, and the school will not enroll its own students, according to Linda Mills, vice chancellor and senior vice provost for global programs and university life.

NYU joins a list of outside universities setting up operations in L.A. This summer Arizona State University bought a stake in the former Los Angeles Herald Examiner building Downtown, where it plans to house journalism and design programs in L.A. in 2020. Emerson College and Quinnipiac University started programs in the city in 2014, and Syracuse University opened a satellite campus in Sherman Oaks in 2011. [Chronicle of Higher Ed] – Gregory Cornfield