The History of College in America

In 1636 the nation's first institution of higher learning (Harvard) was founded. It opened in 1638.

These first colleges (being formed by graduates from Oxford University and Cambridge University – who did not see fit to call them universities) served primarily as colleges of ministry and teachers colleges.

In the late 1800s, the number and character of schools changed to meet the demands of new and larger cities and of new immigrants.

High schools increased in number, adjusted their curriculum to prepare students for the growing state and private colleges; education at all levels began to offer more utilitarian studies in place of an emphasis on the classics. Classics = Latin, Greek, etc.

Before 1920 most secondary education, whether private or public, emphasized college entry for a select few. Proficiency in Greek and Latin was emphasized.

In 1916 the book A Modern School called for a de-emphasis on the classics.

At the beginning of the 20th century, fewer than 1,000 colleges with 160,000 students existed in the United States. Explosive growth in the number of colleges occurred at the end of the 1800s and early twentieth century.

(Philanthropists endowed many of these institutions. Wealthy philanthropists for example, established Stanford University, Vanderbilt University and Duke University; John D. Rockefeller funded the University of Chicago without imposing his name on it.)

Each state used federal funding from the Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Acts of 1862 and 1890 to set up "land grant colleges" that specialized in agriculture and engineering.

The college was a center of middle-class values that served to help young people on their journey to white-collar occupations.

Following World War II, the GI Bill (passed in 1944) made college education possible for many veterans by paying tuition and living expenses. It helped create a widespread belief in the necessity of college education. It opened up higher education to millions of ambitious young men who would otherwise have been forced to immediately enter the job market.

Currently the U.S. Department of Education shows approximately 5000 colleges and universities with more than 19 million students.