When Mimi Sheraton entered NYU in 1943, the student body was much reduced in enrollment thanks to the draft and women outnumbered men, a reversal of the prewar norm.
Because her father knew a Jewish woman who was making $125 a week as a copywriter and even had her own secretary, Sheraton enrolled in the School of Commerce, Accounts and Finance, the forerunner of the prestigious Stern School of Business, which back then, Sheraton writes, offered “crap” courses in copywriting, typography, layout, marketing, media and research, along with survey courses in the liberal arts. She majored in marketing and minored in journalism. Since most of her teachers were working professionals, classes generally ended at 1 PM allowing her spend her afternoon exploring the Village which would become her lifelong home. She and her friends took liberal arts elective courses in the afternoon and evening to justify staying late in the city. In her freshman year she continued working part-time at the cosmetics counter at A&S and, through the university, conducting surveys for marketing research firms, which she frequently faked.
Sheraton eloped in the summer of 1945, after her sophomore year. In 1946 she was a married woman completing her NYU education at night and working as an advertising copywriter while her husband, a returning veteran, studied at Long Island University in downtown Brooklyn under the GI Bill. Her parents continued to pay her tuition.