[2] Architectural models were unveiled by Robert A.M. Stern Architects in May 2009, featuring "a sampling of Gothic styles from across Yale's campus," notably inspired by the early 20th-century buildings of James Gamble Rogers.

[6] Franklin was chosen at the behest of Charles B. Johnson, class of 1954, who had made the single largest gift in Yale's history of $250 million to support construction of the new colleges.

[8] Additionally, some commenters noted the irony of naming one of the two new colleges after Pauli Murray, the granddaughter of a slave, and the other after Franklin, who was a slaveowner (though he adopted abolitionist views later in his life,[8] became the President of the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery, and petitioned the new United States Congress to end the slave trade.

[12] Upon their opening to students for the 2017 academic year, the two colleges increased Yale's undergraduate capacity by 15 percent from 5,400 to 6,200 seats.

[13] Jordan Peccia, the Thomas E. Golden Professor of Environmental Engineering is the current Head of Benjamin Franklin College.