Prior to, and for some time after the Revolutionary War, America's colleges and universities catered almost exclusively to males, following the British and European model. These colleges and universities only gradually opened to co-ed participation at a time when, generally, women seeking to extend their educations would either attend finishing schools, equating to the final years of high school, or a type of women's vocational school: teachers, nursing or (women's) business schools that were designed for female students and task-oriented in outcome. For these, typically, curricula would be designed as two-year courses, providing teachers, nurses, typists, and secretaries for an expanding country where, still, occupational sex roles were culturally enforced, if not as a matter of legislation.
The rise of four-year women's schools Countering this and to meet growing demand, several academically vigorous women's colleges in the United States were established. While a few were fully independent, more commonly these were set up as "coordinate colleges", enjoying various levels of support or integration with established and nearby men's colleges in the years leading up to World War II. "Coordination" here refers to an array of linkages, including direct administrative connections and even a parent/subordinate school relationship, cross-registration, the award of diplomas from the parent school, and at the student level, desirable social connections. After World War II, the establishment of new coordinated colleges appears to have been curtailed, as these gave way to widespread mergers with men's colleges or the move to make most pre-war single-sex institutions coeducational. Out of this turbulent period some of the coordinated colleges emerged as independent women's or co-educational colleges, while others merged with their male counterparts, or closed.
Coordinate colleges versus other types As a class, coordinate colleges were funded and structured quite differently from the finishing schools and business schools for women that had formed in the decades before WWII. Many of the latter were privately owned, for-profit institutions; today, most of these have vanished with only a few, perhaps one or two in each state, evolving into junior colleges themselves or merging into state college systems. Conversely, coordinate colleges can point to an affluent founder (or their partnering male-only school) as their initial and primary supporters; these were structured at the start with the expectation of continuation as long-term foundation- or endowment-supported entities, though none could anticipate the rush to merge or become co-educational in the post-war period. None of the coordinate colleges were investor-owned.
Some, but not all, of the Seven Sisters can be classified as coordinate colleges with a specific originally male-only partner school. However, as a group, they have maintained an equivalent association with the Ivy League schools, conference-to-conference.
Where coordination continues it is most apparent in consortium school relationships (Ivy League and others) to provide cross-registration and mutually accepted financial aid applications.
Coordinate colleges These colleges include:
School name Associated institution Established and range City State Co-ed status Status Notes Bard College Columbia University Annandale-on-Hudson New York Co-ed Independent, merged, then independent again Barnard College Columbia University Manhattan New York Women's Affiliated Bethlehem Female Seminary Moravian University Germantown, then Bethlehem Philadelphia NA MergedCollege of Saint BenedictSaint John's University1913St. JosephMinnesotaWomen'sSemi-mergedEvelyn College for WomenPrinceton University1887–1897PrincetonNew Jersey NAClosedH. Sophie Newcomb Memorial CollegeTulane University1886New OrleansLouisianaNAMerged Jackson College for Women Tufts University Medford/Somerville Massachusetts NA Merged Mills College Northeastern University Oakland California NAMerged Mount Holyoke College Andover Theological Seminary South Hadley Massachusetts Women's Independent Ohio Wesleyan Female College Ohio Wesleyan University -1877 Delaware Ohio NA MergedPembroke CollegeBrown University1891ProvidenceRhode IslandNAMerged Radcliffe College Harvard University Cambridge Massachusetts NA Merged Scripps College Claremont Colleges Claremont California Women's Consortium member Spelman CollegeMorehouse College (Atlanta University Center)1881AtlantaGeorgiaWomen'sConsortium member Tift College Mercer University -1986 Forsyth, now Macon Georgia NA Merged Vassar College Yale University Poughkeepsie New York Co-ed Formerly affiliated Wellesley College Massachusetts Institute of Technology Wellesley Massachusetts Women'sSeparateWesthampton CollegeRichmond College (University of Richmond)1914RichmondVirginiaCo-edMerged (1990)William Smith CollegeHobart College1908GenevaNew YorkWomen's/NASemi-merged
See also Seven Sisters (colleges) Timeline of women's colleges in the United States
References