Vidyasagar College was founded in the year 1872. The college had its origin in the Calcutta Training School that was founded by Thakurdas Chakraborty in 1859. In 1864, the school came to be known as the Metropolitan Institution. In 1872, the University of Calcutta granted affiliation to the Institution for the First Arts standard. The birth of the first private and truly secular college in the Presidency of Bengal was hailed as a landmark in the academic and cultural ethos of India. It was the great Indian educationalist and social reformer Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar who was associated with the College from its very inception in 1872. The college is a living monument of the untiring labours of Vidyasagar who is known to be the founder of the college. After the passing away of the founder in 1891, the name, Metropolitan Institute, was changed to Vidyasagar College in 1917. Saradaranjan Ray, who taught Sanskrit and Mathematics, was a professor and principal of the college. His third brother, Muktidaranjan Ray, who taught Mathematics, was also a professor of this college. The 143 years voyage commenced with only 5 departments i.e. Sanskrit, English, Philosophy, Economics, History. Since 1917 the College entered a phase of rapid growth which made it expand its academic curriculum by introducing a commerce department in 1922 and a morning section for women in 1931. Some of its famous alumni include Swami Vivekananda, Acharya Prafulla Chandra Ray, Keshub Chandra Sen, Acharya Jadunath Sarkar, Ram Manohar Lohia, Jagjivan Ram and many others who made immense contribution in various walks of life. The institution also had the services of such great luminaries as Surendranath Banerjee, Deshbandhu Chittaranjan Das, Professor Sisir Kumar Bhaduri, Nabin Chandra Vidyaratna and even Rabindranath Tagore in various capacities. The Commerce Department of the college, established in 1922, has the distinction of being the oldest commerce teaching department in India. It had its affiliation up to B.Com. standard in 1928 and attracted students from different parts of India. It was due to the untiring effort of Prof. J.C. Mitra, the then Vice-Principal of the College the Commerce Department made such rapid growth in terms of faculty and student strength that a separate wing had to be devoted to commerce teaching.
A scuffle broke out between student activists from the All India Trinamool Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party. Stone pelting incidents have been reported near a college hostel on Bidhan Sarani Street in Kolkata during Amit Shah's Road show on May 2019. BJP workers and supporters shouted "Jai Shri Ram" and "Narendra Modi Zindabad" during the road show. BJP activists locked the doors of the hostel and set up bicycles and motorbikes parked outside on fire. Local news organisation Anandabazar Patrika’s ground report shows stones being hurled inside the premises by people standing outside on the road, wearing saffron coloured “NaMo Again” t-shirts. The footage does not show anyone hrowing stones from inside the campus. In the violence that followed, the BJP workers vandalized the college hostel and destroyed the 200-year-old monument of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar.
