Education: Fall Openings: 1944

“The Government has the boys. Families have college money for the girls.” In these two sentences Barnard’s Dean Virginia E. Gildersleeve explained why U.S. girls are going to college this fall in record-breaking numbers.

In the Midwest:

¶ At the University of Wisconsin, women’s dormitories were full-up two weeks before the start of classes. Freshman girls will outnumber freshman boys by 9-to-1.

¶ Minnesota’s Carleton College reported the same female preponderance.

¶ In Ohio State University’s freshman class, 65% bigger than last year, the ratio will be one boy to four girls.

In the East:

¶ Mount Holyoke admitted the largest freshman class (380) in its 108-year history.

¶ Wellesley rejected 1,000 applicants.

In the Far West:

¶ Reed, Oregon’s progressive coeducational college, reported that the percentage of women in the student body had climbed to 63% from a typical prewar 42%.

¶ Stanford expected to register 1,550 women, compared to 1938’s 1,240.

The wartime cloud, no bigger than a woman’s hand, which hung over the U.S. campus, hung over the future of the professions too. Women’s hands were turning to many campus skills. More of them were working in laboratories than ever before. They were guiding more tracing pens over engineers’ drawing boards. At Iowa State College the newspaper had its first woman editor. At Knox College (“Old Siwash”) the petticoat rule of student publications, which began last year, continued.

Other tendencies notable in this broad restyling of the campus pattern: ¶ The number of servicemen in college classrooms dropped as the Army Student Training Program was slashed. At Cornell it fell from last year’s 5,685 to some 3,000. At the University of Chicago the number has been cut two-thirds.

¶ Washington’s Howard University (for Negroes) reported that its registration has doubled since Pearl Harbor. Registrar Wilkinson explained that more Negroes are seeking college degrees because they: 1) have more money to spend for education; 2) fear discriminatory competition for jobs after the war.

¶ Civilian students at a few men’s colleges are enjoying the most luxurious educational setup of the century. At Hamilton College 30 civilian students gathered last spring around 28 faculty members. “It’s ideal,” remarked one student. “You may find yourself all alone in a class and it won’t be with one of the instructors either. It will be with the head of the department.” Harvard undergraduates were down to 730 (peacetime figure: 3,500-4,500).