Women's college facts for kids

Scripps College, a college for women in Claremont, California, United States

Women's colleges are special schools for higher education. They are mostly for women who want to earn a bachelor's degree. These colleges often focus on a wide range of subjects, known as liberal arts. While most students are women, some of these colleges might allow male students in their advanced study programs. A few might also have a small number of male students in their main programs. But the main goal is always to educate women.

What's the Difference: College vs. Finishing School?

A women's college is all about academics. It teaches subjects like science, history, and literature. It helps students get a strong education.

A finishing school, on the other hand, focuses on social skills. These skills include good manners, how to behave in social settings, and how to host events. If a finishing school teaches academic subjects, those are usually not the main focus.

Sometimes, people mistakenly call women's colleges "finishing schools." Some colleges might have started that way but later became serious academic schools. For example, Finch College used to be like that. Even Miss Porter's School, a high school, started as a finishing school but now focuses on academics.

It's important to know that many women's colleges have never been finishing schools. For instance, Sweet Briar College has always been an academic college. Students and graduates there have always disliked it being called a finishing school. This misunderstanding might have even caused problems for the college, like fewer students joining.

Why Fewer Women's Colleges Exist Today

The number of women's colleges has gone down over the years. In the 1960s, there were about 240 women's colleges in the U.S. By 2015, only around 40 remained. This change shows how much education has grown for women.

A teacher from Radcliffe College (which joined Harvard University) once said that if women's colleges are no longer needed, it means women have succeeded greatly in education. This means women now have many more choices for where to study.

Women's Colleges Around the World

Women's Colleges in Africa

Somaliland

• Barwaaqo University, Baliga Cas (started in 2017)

Sudan

• Ahfad University for Women

Women's Colleges in Asia

• Asian University for Women, Chittagong, Bangladesh (started in 2008)
• Bethune College, the first women's college in South Asia (started in 1879)
• Govt. Begum Rokeya College, Rangpur, Bangladesh (started in 1963)
• Indraprastha College for Women, Delhi (started in 1924)
• Jinnah University for Women, Karachi, Pakistan (started in 1998)
• Keisen University in Japan (started in 1988)
• Lady Irwin College, New Delhi (started in 1932)
• Lahore College for Women University in Pakistan (started in 1922)
• Miranda House, New Delhi (started in 1948)
• Women's College, Aligarh, India (started in 1906)

Women's Colleges in the Philippines

• Assumption College San Lorenzo, Makati City (started in 1959)
• Miriam College in Quezon City (started in 1926)
• Philippine Women's University, the first women's university in the Philippines and Asia (started in 1919)
• St. Paul University Manila (started in 1912)
• St. Scholastica's College Manila (started in 1906)

Women's Colleges in South Korea

• Duksung Women's University in Seoul, South Korea. (started in 1920)
• Dongduk Women's University in Seoul, South Korea. (started in 1950)
• Ewha Womans University in Seoul, South Korea. (started in 1886)
• Seoul Women's University in Seoul, South Korea (started in 1961)
• Sookmyung Women's University in Seoul, South Korea (started in 1906)
• Sungshin Women's University in Seoul, South Korea. (started in 1936)

Women's Colleges in Canada

Brescia University College was the only university-level school just for women in Canada. However, it joined with Western University in 2024.

Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, Nova Scotia began as a women's college in 1875. But in 1967, it started accepting both male and female students.

Women's Colleges in the Middle East

Kingdom of Bahrain

• Royal University for Women

United Arab Emirates

• Dubai Women's College

Kuwait

• Box Hill College Kuwait
• College for Women, a separate faculty at Kuwait University

Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Many big universities in Saudi Arabia have two parts: one just for women and one just for men. These include:

• King Saud University
• Al-Imam University
• King Abdulaziz University
• King Faisal University
• Prince Sultan University

The following schools are only for female students:

• Effat University
• Princess Noura University

Iran

• Alzahra University, Tehran

Women's Colleges in the United Kingdom

Mary Astell was a person who believed that women were just as smart as men. She thought women deserved to be educated. In 1694, she wrote a plan for a college just for women. This college would help women use their minds fully.

The first college to partly make Astell's idea real was Whitelands College. It opened in 1841 to train women teachers. Since 2004, it has been part of the University of Roehampton. After that, two more colleges opened in London: Queen's College in 1848 and Bedford College in 1849. Queen's College became a school for girls. Bedford College joined the University of London and later merged with another women's college.

Girton, which opened in 1869, says it was the first college in Britain to offer university-level education to women who lived there. Later, Somerville and Lady Margaret Hall in Oxford opened in 1879.

Here are some women's colleges that still exist in the UK:

• Murray Edwards College, Cambridge (started in 1954, used to be called New Hall)
• Newnham College, Cambridge (started in 1871)

Many women's colleges in the UK have since started accepting male students.

Women's Colleges in the United States

How Women's Colleges Started in the U.S.

In the 1800s, many private high schools for girls, called "academies" or "seminaries," became popular in the United States. Women's colleges grew out of these schools. They were created because women needed more advanced education. At that time, most colleges and universities only accepted men.

Some early colleges, like Oberlin College (started in 1833) and Antioch College (started in 1853), accepted both men and women. But most well-known colleges were just for men.

People who wanted to improve education for girls had different ideas. Some, like Emma Willard, thought the existing schools needed to teach core subjects better. Others, like Catharine Beecher, felt that these schools were not enough. They believed that a stronger, more lasting type of school – a women's college – was needed. Beecher said that regular schools couldn't offer enough money, buildings, or libraries.

Mary Lyon (1797-1849) was a very important person in this history. She started Mount Holyoke College. She also helped create other schools like Hartford Female Seminary and Ipswich Female Seminary. She was also involved in starting Wheaton Female Seminary (now Wheaton College, Massachusetts) in 1834.

The Women's College Coalition

The Women's College Coalition is a group of women's colleges and universities. It includes two-year and four-year schools, both public and private, and those connected to a religion or not. This group started in 1972. This was a time of big changes in the United States, with the Civil Rights Movement and the Women's Rights Movement.

These changes meant that many schools that used to be only for men started accepting women. This gave women many more choices for their education. Because of this, some women's colleges also started accepting men. By the late 1970s, more women were going to college than men. Today, women make up most of the students in colleges and universities (about 57% across the country). Women also tend to get better grades and are more likely to finish college.

For many years, the Women's College Coalition has studied the benefits of a women's college education. They use research to show why women's colleges are still important today. They share this information with students, families, and the public.

List of Women's Colleges and Universities in North America

See also

• Higher education in the United States
• History of higher education in the United States
• Female education
• Men's college
• Men's colleges in the United States
• Mixed-sex education
• Single-sex education