Government Arts College was established in the year 1966 as per G.O.M.S.No.502 Education of Tamilnadu. The college is affiliated to Thiruvalluvar University - [TU], Vellore. Under graduate Students are eligible to join to National Cadet Corps (NCC). The students who joined in NCC should get training for two years continuously. The students who trained by NCC will be given first preference in Admissions of Government & Private Colleges.

The college got ‘B’ Grade by NAAC in 2004. The college also ventured and started self-financing PG courses like M.A. History, M.A. Economics and M.Com in the academic year 2004-05 and M.Sc. Mathematics, M.Sc. Botany, BBA (UG) courses were introduced in 2005 – 06, but all these courses were regularized by Government of Tamilnadu in 2006-07. B.Sc. Computer Science course was introduced in 2008-09. Apart from the above courses M.Phil., Mathematics, Physics, Botany, History, Economics and Commerce were also introduced in 2009-10, M.Sc. Computer Science was started in the academic year 2010-11, M.Sc., Chemistry, M.A., English, Tamil were started in the academic year 2011-12, M.Phil., and Ph.D., Chemistry, English were also introduced in 2012-13.