The antecedent school, the Goldsmith Business College, was founded by W. D. Cochrane and located at the corner of Larned and
Woodward Avenue about four blocks north of the
Detroit River. In 1857 Cochrane sold the school to
Bryant and Stratton, who moved it to the
Merrill Block where J. H. Goldsmith managed the institution as a branch of Bryant & Stratton College. When the Detroit Business University was formed Goldsmith was its first president. In 1874 the institution moved to the corner of Griswold Street and Lafayette Avenue. Spencerian Business College was a successor of the Mayhew Business College that had operated in Albion, Michigan beginning in 1859. The Detroit Business University was founded in 1887 by the merger of Spencerian Business College (founded in 1883) and Goldsmith Business College (founded in 1850). One of its early presidents was William F. Jewell, while
Platt R. Spencer, who had headed the Spencerian Business College, was the head of the school's penmanship department. Among the students who studied at institutions that became the Detroit Business University was
Henry Ford. The
Gutchess Metropolitan Business College also later merged with the Detroit Business University. In the 1930s the institution was still known as the Detroit Business University, but apparently by the 1950s it had changed its name to the Detroit Business Institute. In the 1960s it began a collegiate institute in
Dearborn, Michigan. In 1964 this became the
Detroit College of Business. In the 2000s, the school had a campus in
Southfield, Michigan, but that location has since closed. Now the school has one main campus, located in
Riverview, Michigan. ==Academics==