Single-Sex Colleges

Historical Origins of Single-Sex Colleges

Beginning with the founding of Harvard College in 1636, all of the earliest colleges in the United States were designed to serve men. Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, colleges were established to train clergymen from elite sectors of society, with the expectation that these men would go forth and expand the burgeoning country. Attendance at these colleges was slight, only about 60 young men per school, and most of these colleges focused on teaching the classics.

Women did not have the opportunity for higher education until the late 1800s. Between 1750 and 1865, the highest level of education available to young women was in private girls' academies or seminaries—equivalent to high school. These schools were focused on preparing young women to fulfill their anticipated roles as wives and mothers. At school, these young women were taught religion and the “polite arts”—singing, dancing, and literature—all of which were considered necessary for good character and etiquette.

A contributing force in the shift in women's education toward a more academic curriculum was the growth of the common education system in the late 1800s. Common schooling—the predecessor to public education—required trained teachers. This caused girls' academies to expand their curriculum to include teacher education. Along with the call for more educated teachers, early feminists' demands for education that paralleled the formal curriculum at men's colleges also increased educational opportunities for women.

The first official college for women was Wesleyan College, chartered in Georgia in 1836. Around this time, other women's colleges also emerged, including “the Seven Sisters,” often considered the Ivy League of women's colleges. The Seven Sisters (Mount Holyoke, Barnard, Bryn Mawr, Radcliffe, Smith, Vassar, and Wellesley) were all founded between 1837 and 1889. The early women's colleges replicated the classical curriculum of the most elite men's colleges, focusing on liberal education and languages such as Latin and Greek.

Concurrent with the growth of women's colleges during this period, there was a decline in the number of men's colleges, prompted by the Civil War (1861–1865). With men serving in the war, men's colleges experienced declining enrollments and subsequent financial strain, causing many of them to open their doors to women. The challenges facing men's colleges were further exacerbated by federal legislation such as the Morrill Land Grants Acts (1862, 1890), which led to the establishment of state coeducational colleges, thereby reducing the need for of all-men's private colleges.

The decline of male single-sex education continued in the latter half of the 20th century, when many of the remaining historically all-male private institutions opened their doors to women, notably Dartmouth College and Duke University in 1972 and Columbia College in 1983. Women's colleges also suffered; many became coeducational themselves, merged with all-male or coeducational institutions, or closed because of declining enrollment and financial challenges. Since the 1960s, the number of women's colleges has declined from 252 to just 51 today.

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