Quite a few universities have branch campuses in Washington, DC, but it seems like there isn’t a definitive list online. This seems odd: not only is higher education is one of the metro area’s largest non-federal industries, but in international economic development circles branch campuses seem just as highly sought after as corporate headquarters. After all, not everyone has the chance to import smart, motivated, mobile, impressionable kids from elsewhere during the most memorable years of their lives. Even if they don’t stay afterwards, there’s at least a chance to leave a good impression on future global leaders.

That’s why countries in Asia and the Middle East are spending lavishly to attract branch campuses of prestigious universities: Abu Dhabi and Shanghai both custom-built free campuses and gave cash grants to get NYU started there. NYC has also embarked upon the same effort through its three Applied Science Campuses.

Contrast that approach to here: NYU paid for its DC building through their own fundraising.* DC’s economic development officials have been dragging their feet for years on opening a college campus at St. Elizabeth’s, instead spending their time moving pro sports facilities there from elsewhere in the District. Not only is there not a concerted effort to attract or retain facilities, or the go-getter students who attend these campuses – there’s not even a list of these facilities. This seems like a missed opportunity.

So, crowdsourced by Jason Terry and his friends, universities that have a full-time physical presence within the counties traversed by the Beltway and that aren’t the locally headquartered members of CUWMA:

Consortiums that serve multiple universities from elsewhere

• The Washington Campus
• The Washington Center
• The Washington Semester at AU

Full, undergraduate degree-granting, residential branch campus

• None that I know of

Has classrooms, offices, and dorms

• Boston University
• Cornell
• Lutheran College(s)
• NYU
• Pepperdine
• Stanford
• Syracuse
• University of California
• University of Georgia
• Virginia Tech – WAAC has dorms for upperclass undergrads only

Classrooms and offices, subleased dormitories

• Arizona State
• Duke (NYU’s dorm)
• Hamilton College
• Michigan State
• Penn State
• South Carolina
• Southern California
• UT

Classrooms and offices, no dorms (includes postgraduate-only and commuter schools)

• California University of Management
• Carnegie Mellon
• Central Michigan University
• Dallas Theological Seminary
• Drexel University
• Florida Institute of Technology
• Johns Hopkins
• Missouri State University
• Northwestern University, Medill Washington Newsroom
• Penn
• UVa
• Various for-profit operations (Argosy, Art Institutes, Corinthian, DeVry, Kaplan, North America, Park, Stratford, Strayer, U of Phoenix, Webster)
• Perhaps MIT plans something like this at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center campus?

Office with supportive programming for interns

• Chicago
• Harvard (although Dumbarton Oaks does something academic)
• Princeton

Additional crowdsourced entries welcome via Twitter. After all, both USCs and both CMUs are on this list, so I’m sure that numerous other universities with completely different initials are here.

* Not to be misconstrued as a statement in favor of economic development incentives, which are largely useless whether they’re given to for-profit or non-profit corporations.