DESHBANDHU COLLEGE was established in the year 1952 by the Ministry of Rehabilitation, in the memory of Late LalaDeshbandhu Gupta - a veteran freedom fighter. The college made a humble beginning with just 72 students and the courses like Prep(arts), Prep(science) and Pre-medical. The college was transferred to ministry of education and later taken over by the University of Delhi.

Guided by the mantra "Karmanyevadhikaraste" - our motto, the college continues to grow both in size and stature. Today, Deshbandhu is a fully maintained constituent college of University of Delhi and has the distinction of being the oldest and the largest co-educational institution in South Delhi promoting Arts, Commerce and Science courses. The college offers seven post graduate and eighteen undergraduate courses in disciplines ranging from languages/literature, history, political science, economics, commerce to all the major branches of science and mathematics and caters to over 4500 students every year.

The sprawling campus of Deshbandhu college, with its lawns, gardens and playgrounds provide a healthy environment for all round development of the generation. The campus is dotted with an Administrative block, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar block, Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam block, Swami Vivekananda Auditorium, a huge library, and with well equipped laboratories, together with students' common rooms, gymnasium, canteen, photocopy, web access centre, medical room, banking facility, a seminar hall, botanical garden and so on.

To encourage self-learning and to satisfy the thirst for knowledge of the students, the college library has a massive collection of more than 105,000 books, a host of journals and magazines, a spacious reading room, a separate floor for teachers and research scholars, and a book bank section which lends text books to needy students.The college has created a spacious “Web Access Centre” in which 80 computers and servers provided by the Delhi University are housed. The servers have optical fibre connectivity and the college campus is Wi-Fi enabled. In addition there is a dedicated facility for use of computers and Internet connectivity in the library.

The college promotes organization of seminars, lectures, workshops, sports activities, N.S.S., N.C.C. and other co-curricular activities. Every student finds his/her expression through College students’ union. A number of scholarships and financial aid is provided to meritorious and needy students every year. The Career- counselling and Placement Cell of the college provide suitable employement opportunities to graduating students through campus recruitment.

There are also some important cells for the betterment of different sections of the society such as Equal Opportunity Cell, SC-ST Cell, OBC Cell and North-East Cell.

Deshbandhu College has an active Internal Quality assurance Cell (IQAC), as a mechanism to build and ensure a quality culture at the college level. The College also has a women Development Cell (WDC), which is a group of passionate feminist scholars and activists coming together to discuss Gender related issues

The College is well-equipped with all infra-structural/academic support that a student requires.

The College and the faculty offer a holistic environment to the student and gives preference to their psychological/academic needs. This creates an informal, close knit, friendly and supportive environment that encourages hard work and academic achievement.