Colleges for men modeled their campuses on the 'academical villages' plan, in which men slept in dorms and crossed the quad to attend classes in various buildings. Nevertheless, even women's colleges treated higher education for women as ' dangerous experiments,' according to historian Helen Horowitz. In total, 50 women's colleges opened their doors in the U.S. Over the next several decades, other women's colleges opened up, including Barnard, Vassar, Bryn Mawr, Smith, and Wellesley. In 1836, Wesleyan became the first women's college in the world. Women's colleges offered another path to a degree. The year Oberlin first began admitting women, female students were dismissed from classes on Monday to do male students' laundry. Students observe a dissection at the Woman's Hospital of Philadelphia in 1911.īut coed schools didn't always treat male and female students equally. By 1900, 1 in 3 Black professionals in the U.S. Access to higher education created new opportunities for previously excluded students. Then in 1862, the institution awarded a degree to Mary Jane Patterson, making her the first Black woman to earn a bachelor's. In 1837, Oberlin opened its doors to all students, including women and people of color.

Nineteenth-century women had two routes to higher education: They could enroll at either coed institutions like Oberlin College or women's colleges like Wesleyan College. This change directly challenged Victorian notions of women's roles, and many colleges resisted pressures to switch to a coed model. The long exclusion of women from higher education gradually shifted in the 19th century. The Rise of Coed Institutions and Women's Colleges As such, gender norms effectively excluded women from higher education for centuries. Single-sex education was rooted in the idea that women didn't need a degree to pursue socially acceptable roles like homemaker, mother, and domestic servant. Colleges might let women sit in on lectures - though even that wasn't guaranteed - but degrees were restricted to men. Like Piscopia, other women attended college classes, but most faced hurdles when it came time to graduate. Though Piscopia was the first woman to earn a Ph.D., her gender restricted her degree options, and the University of Padua did not award another doctorate to a woman for three centuries. Piscopia's allies pushed back, though, eventually helping her receive a Ph.D. Women should not earn theology degrees, the institution declared, barring Piscopia from graduating. But when Piscopia applied for her degree, the Catholic Church intervened. She impressed her instructors, even excelling in a public debate against three male intellectuals. In 1672, Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia enrolled at the University of Padua to study theology. When women began breaking their way into higher education, they often faced intense scrutiny. Portrait of Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia (1646-1684) In medieval Europe, where universities in Oxford, Cambridge, Paris, and Bologna flourished, higher education was meant for men, as women couldn't become priests, lawyers, or physicians. Theology, then dubbed the 'queen of degrees,' ranked as the highest-status degree, followed by law and medicine. The first European universities largely trained students for careers in the church. Early Colleges Bar Women From Earning Degrees So how did women break into higher education? With a lot of time, and with much resilience. Generations of women faced pushback from male classmates, administrators, and others who framed their opposition as a defense of tradition.īut by the 1980s, women made up a majority of undergraduates a position they continue to hold today. The process of making higher education coeducational wasn't smooth. These days, however, nearly all colleges and universities enroll women (except for a small handful of men-only schools). For over 300 years, Harvard admitted only white men from prominent families - that is, until the 19th century, when women turned the tide in their fight for a place at America's universities.īefore then, colleges rarely admitted women. In 1636, only a handful of years after British settlers established their first permanent colonies on the coast of North America, Harvard College began educating students.

Despite women's progress in higher ed, problems remain in pay equality and stereotypes.

Most Ivy League schools refused to admit women and erected sister schools as a compromise.

experienced a rise in women's colleges and coed institutions.

Until the 19th century, women were effectively barred from higher education.

Image Credit: skynesher / E+ / Getty Images The Public Ivies, Little Ivies, and Other Ivy League Equivalents.

Female models who has a degree