Although its roots trace back to a Catholic primary school founded in Soho in 1803, the college was established in its present form in 1999.

[2] Under Chandra's ownership, the college began adding externally awarded diplomas at both undergraduate and postgraduate level in law, business, tourism and hospitality, computing and health and social care.

LSBF and St Patrick's collectively netted £13.5m in tuition fee payments, with their students receiving a total of £49m in government grants and loans.

[5][9] The college's rapid expansion also generated a number of student and staff complaints, described in The Guardian in 2014 and in the BBC Radio programme Face the Facts broadcast on 26 February 2015.

According to the QAA, the concerns related primarily to admissions procedures, programme approval, the learning environment, student retention and attendance, teaching quality, and record keeping.

The QAA found dropout rates of more than 30 per cent and evidence "indicative of recruitment errors and a failure to ensure that academic staff are equipped to cope with periodic disciplinary problems".

[11] According to an article in Times Higher Education published on 7 May 2015, the UK government nevertheless allowed the college to resume access to public money after it had been suspended earlier in the year.

[14][15] In September 2015 St Patrick's parent company Global University Systems (GUS) announced plans for a two-year restructuring process of the corporation's UK holdings set to begin in mid-2016.

In the past, the college also had schools of Technology, Tourism and Hospitality, Art and Design, and Law and offered several post-graduate diplomas and degrees awarded by a variety of external providers.