Over the past half century the number of women’s colleges in the United States has dropped from more than 200 to a little more than 40. This has prompted some observers to question whether there is still a need for single-sex educational institutions.
A new analysis by Margaretta Colangel appearing on LinkedIn.com has found that today only 2 percent of all women who earn a college degree, do so at a women’s college. But those women who have graduated from women’s colleges go on to do great things. For example, 20 percent of women members of Congress graduated from a women’s college. And 33 percent of the women who sit on the boards of directors of Fortune 1000 companies are graduates of women’s colleges.
Furthermore, graduates of women’s colleges are twice as likely as women graduates of co-educational institutions to go to medical school or obtain a Ph.D.
The study also found that 80 percent of graduates of women’s college have gone on to earn a graduate degree. And 75 percent of women’s college graduates are in the workforce.
Graduates of women’s colleges include Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, Madeline Albright, Jeanne Fitzpatrick, Geraldine Ferraro, Christine Todd Whitman, Drew Gilpin Faust, Diane Sawyer, Katharine Hepburn, Meryl Streep, Julia Child, Martha Stewart, and Cokie Roberts. Also Margaret Mead, Emily Dickinson, Gertrude Stein, Margaret Mitchell, Pearl Buck, Alice Walker, Gwen Ifill, Barbara Walters, Erica Jong, Anna Quindlen and dozens of other notable women are graduates of women’s colleges.
It is quite clear that America’s women’s colleges produce a large number of women graduates who go on to be leaders in our society. These colleges are a valuable resources that must be nurtured and supported for the betterment of all Americans.
Please add to the list of graduates of women’s colleges in Congress: Congresswoman Betty McCollum (D-MN, a 1987 graduate of College of St. Catherine, now St. Catherine University, St. Paul – Minneapolis, Minn. (www.stkate.edu)