The New School for Social Research was founded in 1919 with the primary mission of providing adult education. In 1943, NSSR was divided into two schools, the School of Politics, and the School of Liberal Arts and Philosophy. At this time, in response to the needs of returning veterans wishing to take advantage of the GI Bill, the school began a program called Senior Year at the New School. Geared toward adults who had previously completed some cousework, the program offered undergraduate credits for some courses and awarded bachelors degrees. However, the majority of students continued to take non-credit courses.

In 1997, the New School for Social Research was officially renamed New School University. The founding division, still devoted to adult education, was given the general name The New School, now comprising one of seven divisions of New School University. In 2005, the school underwent another series of name changes, which led to the overarching organization being called The New School, while the adult education program was named The New School for General Studies. This name was changed in 2011, when the adult education program was called The New School for Public Engagement and combined with the Milano School of International Affairs, Management, and Urban Policy, which until that time had been a separate division.

In 1933, the New School for Social Research established the Graduate Faculty of Political and Social Science. Also known as the "University in Exile," the division was founded in order to host German and other European scholars who left their countries to escape political and racial persecution. The Board of Regents of the State of New York granted a provisional charter in 1934, allowing the Graduate Faculty to confer Master of Social Science and Doctor of Social Science degrees. This was the first time the New School for Social Research offered credit to students in any of its programs. The New School was fully accredited as a university. In 2005, the Graduate Faculty changed its name to The New School for Social Research, reclaiming the founding name of the entire institution which had been dropped eight years before.

The Dramatic Workshop of the New School for Social Research was established in 1940 and continued to offer classes at The New School until 1948 when the partnership ended. In 1994 The New School for Drama was founded, aligning itself with the tradition of the original Dramatic Workshop.

The New School Senior College was established in 1944 as an evening college for adults. Administrators were discussing the desirability of opening a day college for fulltime students from at least the late 1950s. The first fulltime day school was New School College, which operated from around 1966 through 1970 as a two-year college for students who had completed two years of college coursework at other institutions. The college awarded a BA in Humanities or Social Sciences. The Seminar College was established in 1975 or 1976, at first as an expanded program within the Senior College, offering a path for college-age students to earn a BA degree in a fulltime day program. The Seminar College ran until 1985, when it was renamed Eugene Lang College. The Freshman Year Program, which opened in 1972, provided intensive university-level courses to students entering their final year of high school (or recent high school graduates) who would then matriculate elsewhere at the sophomore level. According to New School course catalogs the Freshman Year Program ran until at least 1980.

From 1919 to 1931 course information was announced at least once a year with occasional Spring and Summer semester supplements in a document called the The New School for Social Research Announcement. Beginning in 1931 adult education courses were announced at least twice a year, in the Fall and Spring, in a publication titled The New School for Social Research Inc. from 1931 to 1934, simply The New School for Social Research from 1934 to 1937 and The New School for Social Research Curriculum from 1937 to 1943. In 1944 a weekly bulletin was established to communicate news about the school, including announcements about courses and events; the bulletin was published on a semi-monthly basis starting in 1961, monthly from 1966 to 1997, 8 times a year from 1998 to 2000, 7 times a year from 2001 to 2002, and 4 times a year from 2002 to the present. Each semester (Fall, Spring and Summer), an issue of the bulletin was dedicated to describing the full catalog of adult courses. Only those bulletins dedicated specifically and comprehensively to course information are included in this collection.

Beginning in 2005 when The New School was restructured, information about adult education courses was published in The New School for General Studies Course Catalog. In 2010, the school was restructured once again and adult education became part of the newly formed New School for Public Engagement, with course information published in separate catalogs for continuing education and degree programs.