The foundation of the college was announced in 2011 under the leadership of A. C. Grayling, with education based around an Oxbridge-like tutorial system and fees of £18,000 a year.

Initial reports said that it aimed to offer an education to rival that of Oxford and Cambridge,[6] but Grayling said this had been blown out of proportion by press hyperbole.

Complaints included that NCH had copied the course descriptions of the University of London's international programmes on its website; was offering the same syllabus with a significantly higher price tag; and that the senior academics involved with the project would in fact do very little of the teaching.

[7][23] Lawyer David Allen Green, writing in the New Statesman, described NCH as a "sham" and a "branding exercise with purchased celebrity endorsements and a PR-driven website.

[26] However, Britain's former prime minister Tony Blair endorsed the college;[27] and London's mayor, Boris Johnson, called it the boldest experiment in higher education in the UK since the foundation in 1983 of the University of Buckingham, the UK's first private university; he wrote that it showed the way ahead for academics demoralized by government interference with admissions procedures and "scapegoated for the weaknesses of the schools.

"[8] The Times argued that higher education has been a closed shop in the UK for too long, that all over the world there are excellent universities run independently of the state, and that in its conception NCH is teaching by example.

[28] The Economist wrote that there is a market for the idea because of the increasing number of qualified British students who fail to get into their university of choice, in part because of pressure on the top universities from the Office for Fair Access to increase the number of students from state schools; they added that "a 'toffs’ college' of well-heeled Oxbridge near-misses is a provocative concept.

"[29] The Harvard historian Niall Ferguson, one of the college's partners, said he had read the criticism of NCH with incredulity: "Anyone who cares about the humanities will be cheering Anthony Grayling.

"[11] Toby Young argued in The Daily Telegraph that the reaction was part of a left-wing campaign to retain state control over education, involving, he wrote, public sector unions, university lecturers, and the Socialist Workers Party.

"[33] A dozen protesters heckled Grayling at Foyles bookshop in London on 7 June 2011 during a debate about cuts to arts funding, one of them shouting that he had "no right to speak."

[43] Its "Diploma of New College of the Humanities" is earned alongside the various combined BA and BSc degrees by completion of courses in applied ethics, critical reasoning, science literacy[44] and LAUNCH, its professional development programme.

[45] In 2016 NCH announced that it would be offering its first postgraduate qualification from that September, an MA in historical research and public history validated by Swansea University.

The Provost of Northeastern, who had responsibility for overseas campuses, stated that she thought the UK higher education market had opportunities for an innovation in apprenticeships and lifelong learning that could provide future growth for the college, along with an expansion of the curriculum from its liberal arts focus to become more multi-disciplinary.

[59] It offers master's degrees in artificial intelligence, ethics, data science, creative writing, politics, sustainability, investment banking and project management.