Women’s colleges disappearing when they’re most needed
I will deliver the commencement address Saturday at Mills College at Northeastern University. The historic former women’s college in Oakland merged with the Boston-based university in 2022, ending its 170 years as a private, liberal arts women’s college.
As an alumna, it will be a bittersweet moment for me. Having the opportunity to address some of the final graduates of the school who knew it as I did is truly an honor, but it is also a reminder of the dwindling number of women’s colleges in this country and what all of us stand to lose because of it.
When I arrived on the campus of Mills College in the fall of 1998, I was excited to be immersed in a women-focused environment; one I hadn’t experienced at the technology magnet high school I had attended or at home growing up the lone daughter among sons.
Women’s colleges have always offered a unique educational experience that empowers women, champions their rights and fosters an inclusive community. These institutions have nurtured and produced leaders, thinkers and changemakers since the first women’s college in the U.S., Mount Holyoke, was founded in 1837.
Today, as they did in the past, women’s colleges serve as sanctuaries where the rights and dignity of women are not only respected but are a fundamental part of the curriculum. These institutions offer comprehensive health and wellness programs that educate and empower women to make informed decisions about their bodies and health, a stark contrast to the broader societal trend of restricting women’s health care choices.
Women’s colleges also provide significant mental health benefits to their students. A 1990 study published in the Journal of Higher Education found that students at women’s colleges at the time reported lower levels of stress and higher levels of satisfaction with their college experience compared to their contemporaries at coeducational institutions. Nearly two decades later, research in the Journal of College Student Development showed that students at women’s colleges reported more engagement, academic challenge and support for success relative to women at coeducational colleges.
There are also long-term effects. A long-range study of women who attended these institutions 30 years after graduation found that graduates of women’s colleges are more likely to hold higher positions in their careers and report greater satisfaction with their college experience compared to their coeducational counterparts. These institutions have also long offered a safe haven for queer women and gender-nonconforming people, providing support networks and resources that may be lacking in other educational settings. In 2014, Mills College officially began admitting “selfidentified women and students who are assigned to female sex at birth and identify as transgender or gender fluid” and many other women’s colleges followed suit soon after.
Attending a women’s college can also lead to increased earning potential. A study by the Women’s College Coalition found that graduates of women’s colleges are more likely to attain advanced degrees and, consequently, earn more than their peers from coeducational institutions. At a time when women are less likely to be promoted despite having higher performance ratings than their male counterparts, the leadership skills, confidence and strong alumni networks that women’s colleges uniquely provide prepare students not just to enter the workforce, but to excel and lead within it.
Though just 2% of women who graduate from college are women’s college alumni, over 20% of women in Congress are women’s college graduates, and 33% of women on Fortune 1000 boards are women’s college graduates.
Despite all this, the number of women’s colleges is in decline. These institutions grapple with the same financial challenges facing all but the nation’s most prestigious colleges and universities. Mills’ merger is an example of a broader trend in higher education. Since the 2010s, numerous women’s colleges have gone co-ed, from Wells in New York to Regis in Massachusetts to RandolphMacon in Virginia. When I was applying to college in the late ’90s, there were more than 80 women’s colleges operating in the U.S. Today, there are fewer than 30.
Critics might argue that the decreasing number of women’s colleges signals a diminishing relevance in a progressively coeducational world. However, this perspective overlooks the value of all-women’s spaces in that very world. The challenges and barriers women face today underscore the need for such spaces, not as relics of the past but as beacons for the future.
Many of my heroes are graduates of women’s colleges including civil rights and children’s rights activist Marian Wright Edelman and former Georgia representative and voting rights activist Stacy Abrams. The same goes for authors who have written books that have shaped my life, like Jhumpa Lahiri. Would “The Babysitters Club” series — which profoundly impacted my adolescence and so many other girls growing up in the ’90s — have existed had Ann M. Martin not attended Smith College?
Women’s colleges stand as a testament to the resilience, strength and potential of women when they have access to sanctuaries of empowerment, advocacy and inclusion. Society loses when women have less access to them.
At a time when women’s reproductive rights and bodily autonomy are under constant siege, the need for women’s colleges — and an understanding of their inherent value — is more crucial than ever.