El Colegio de México, A.C. (commonly known as Colmex, English: The College of Mexico) is a Mexican institute of higher education, specializing in teaching and research in social sciences and humanities.
The college was founded in 1940 by the Mexican Federal Government, the Bank of Mexico (Banco de México), the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), and the Fondo de Cultura Económica. In the late 1930s, following the end of the Spanish Civil War, Mexican president Lázaro Cardenas created the House of Spain in Mexico (1938–1940) to host Spanish intellectuals in exile in Mexico; Mexico was the only country that in 1939 welcomed Spanish refugees. Under the direction of intellectual Alfonso Reyes, the House of Spain became a higher education center, and was renamed El Colegio de México in 1940. The College now operates under a 1961 charter that allows the institution to provide college-level teaching in the fields of humanistic knowledge and social and political sciences. In 1976, the university's campus was moved from the Colonia Roma (a historic neighborhood just west of the city's center) to its current location in the southern portion of the capital; the main building of the campus was designed by the Mexican architect Teodoro González de León. The college contains seven separate academic centers collectively offering three undergraduate degrees, seven master's degrees and eight doctoral degrees.
