The origin of La Salle University, goes back to the seventeenth century in France where St. John Baptist de La Salle founded the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools in 1680 (Instituto de los Hermanos de las Escuelas Cristianas), to provide Christian, academic and, above all, humanistic instruction to needy boys and young men of that time. It was on February 15, 1962 when La Salle University opened its doors for the first time, with the relocation of the Cristobal Colon High School, originally situated in the San Rafael neighborhood, to the Hipodromo Condesa neighborhood, in May of that same year it was announced that the High School would be transformed into a Higher Education Center, thus becoming the first La Salle University in Latin America.