WHO GOES TO COLLEGE?

Who Goes To College?

Women & Chicanos Challenge The Norm

Paige Guardiola

Salem State University

WHO GOES TO COLLEGE? 2

Who goes to college? This is a complex question. Historically, college was not accessible

to the entire population and only a select group of individuals were able to attend university in

the United States. Slowly, with the help of various individuals and movements, doors were

opened for more citizens. This paper explores how who historically was intended to attended

college during the colonial period was challenged in the following centuries. Specifically, the

paper will focus on the struggles for inclusion of women and Chicano/a individuals in higher

education.

In colonial America, the first universities of the “new world” began to crop up. Most

notably were Harvard University and the College of William and Mary as the first two

universities to be established in the United States. The colonial era of education includes the

mid-to-late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It is important to discuss the identities of the

students attending universities at this time. The students tended to be of wealthy families within

the colony (Thelin, 2011). Moreover, they were all male. Wealthy white men made up the

student demographic of colonial colleges in this period. These colleges operated to create and

sustain a type of elitism. A quote from one Virginian at the time illuminates the exclusionary

tendencies of the US’s earliest institutions of higher learning, “I am an aristocrat. I love liberty; I

hate equality” (Thelin, 2011, p. 26). Columbia University, then King’s College, reinforced the

idea of exclusion in its mission stating that one of their goals was to “polish the whole man”

(Thelin, 2011, p. 26). This illustrates the belief of the time that only men were meant to attend

college.

In the nineteenth century, the pervasive culture of the time separated the sexes and each

had different responsibilities. Men were of the public, political and economic realm, while

women were relegated to household and child rearing roles. However, this century also opened
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the doors for women to begin attending institutions of higher education. This change in the

predominant narrative, that higher education was to be a privilege for males, came about for

several reasons, but most notably the need and desire for female teachers. Women were viewed

as making better teachers because of their “innate maternal instincts” which would help them

create relationships and have meaningful interactions with students (Gordon, 1991). Therefore,

many of the women in this time who attended seminaries or normal schools were on the path to

becoming teachers. Some private colleges in the antebellum era, particularly Oberlin and

Antioch became the pioneers of coeducation in higher education. Despite this coeducation,

Oberlin College still placed male and female students in different spheres. Women were to study

the Ladies’ Course (until 1841 when they were given the opportunity to elect the Men’s Course

if they desired). They were also denied the right to deliver graduation orations and other such

public speeches, and they were tasked with performing domestic work for the institution

(Gordon, 1991). So while these women were at least afforded the opportunity to study at an

institution of higher education, they were still being treated as second-class citizens while at the

university. Yet another type of institution integral to women’s access to higher education were

women’s colleges. Women’s colleges, particularly in the East and the South, provided women an

opportunity for education where regional preferences for single-sex education denied them

access to private and state institutions far into the twentieth century (Gordon, 1991). The

curriculum at the eastern women’s colleges included Latin and Greek courses, but they also

offered “an impressive array of natural and social sciences and pioneered in the development of

fine arts” (Gordon, 1991, p. 27). The founders of these colleges often looked to female

seminaries for ways to design campus life to keep their students womanly, mainly by continuing

the association of women’s education with religiosity. However, a lot of women, Jane Addams
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among them, opposed this association of female education with religion, and instead urged them

to take on a more secular social service focus (Gordon, 1991). Eastern women’s colleges were

close communities that provided a space where both student and faculty needs were being met

despite administrators and trustees opinions. They afforded female academics with an

opportunity to work as faculty, because men’s or coeducational colleges would not hire them.

Students at women’s colleges were given more individualized attention by faculty because they

didn’t have to compete with men for attention or recognition. Female students were provided

with leadership opportunities through extracurricular activities (some without administrative

sanction). Given this platform and male-less environment, the women, both faculty and students,

were able to engage in discourse about women’s issues and the future of educated women

(Gordon, 1991). While seminaries and normal schools accepted women from various walks of

life, the Eastern women’s colleges mainly accepted upper middle class white women until the

mid-20th century. Southern women’s colleges didn’t integrate racially until the 1960s. By the late

19th century, most universities had moved to a co-educational platform. By 1920, female students

made up 47.3 percent of American undergraduates, with more than 90 percent having attended

coeducational schools (Gordon, 1991). So while American universities still had a far way to go

in regards to access, by the mid twentieth century Women had been successful in gaining access

to institutions of higher learning.

Chicano’s struggle for equal access to higher education in the United States began in the

nineteenth century and lasted into the 1990s. In 1848, the United States signed the Treaty of

Guadalupe Hidalgo. This treaty signed over a large portion of what had been Mexico to the

United States, including modern-day Arizona, Colorado, California, New Mexico, and Texas.

Now, Mexicans became foreigners in their own land. Those who chose to stay living within the
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new territories were “granted citizenship, preservation of former land grants, and Spanish

language rights” (Macdonald, 2003, p. 19). During this era, up until the early 20th century, only

Mexicans of the most privileged classes in the new territories could attend university. Flash

forward to the 1930s to 1950s and an exceptional few college-going pioneers of Mexican descent

from middle class families began entering institutions of higher education. They were often the

only Chicano student in any given class. However, barriers to graduation from high school for

Mexican American’s in particular really halted any possibility of progress. In the Southwest,

Mexican children were segregated into separate schools. Obstacles such as “lack of enforcement

of school attendance laws, language difficulties, immigration, classroom harassment, and

racism” left few Mexican American children finishing eighth grade (Macdonald, 2003, p. 25). In

an era called El Movimiento, Chicanos fought back. They organized in order to demand an end

to segregation and discrimination in K-12 and access to institutions of higher learning. The first

Chicano protest on a college campus happened at San Jose State College in California in 1968.

At commencement, about two hundred graduating seniors and audience members walked out of

the ceremony. They were protesting the underrepresentation of Chicano students and the lack of

bilingual and cultural training for professionals (Macdonald, 2003). The 1969 conference that

took place at University of California Santa Barbara is the most significant conference

historically for Latino’s in higher education. Organized by The Chicano Coordinating Council on

Higher Education, the conference resulted in El Plan de Santa Barbara which was a manifesto

that circulated throughout the nation as a model for Chicanos in higher education. El Plan de

Santa Barbara had three key objectives: stress “the obligation of college and university Chicanos

to maintain ties with the barrio community”, emphasize the “importance of changing institutions

of higher education to open their accessibility to Chicanos” (a key step of which hiring Chicano
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faculty, administrators, and staff), and “called for the alteration of traditional European White

interpretations of history, literature, and culture to incorporate Third World viewpoints and

particularly Chicano perspectives” (MacDonald, 2003, p. 30). The student youth movement

began to die down as the government, private foundations, and universities began to implement

many of the student’s demands. The 1980s and 1990s saw a surging population of Latinos who

were swiftly becoming the “largest” minority in the United States, and also the least educated.

This caught the attention of the federal government. The Higher Education Act Amendments of

1984 introduced by Paul Simon suggested a few reforms to aid Hispanic access and retention:

modifying Title III “to provide direct aid to institutions with high concentrations of Hispanic

Students”, designate money for Latino students in TRIO Programs, place “emphasis on Teacher

Preperation (Title V) programs to train teachers for Hispanic populations, and increase funding

for “the Graduate and Professional Opportutnities Program (G*POP) to channel more Latinos

towards graduate and professional schools” (MacDonald, 2003, p. 36). While this bill was not

approved, succeeding legislation adopted the bill’s key points. Additionally, the federal

recognition of Hispanic Serving Institution’s (HSI’s) as a category of institution secured the

eligibility for federal funds for Latino students (MacDonald, 2003). While there have been these

promising strides for Chicano inclusion in higher education, recent studies show that there is still

work to be done to ensure that Chicano students have the same access and retention at colleges

and universities as white students. Latino students continue to drop out at high rates for financial

reasons, 40% remain clustered at two-year institutions in comparison to 25% of White students,

and it is predicted that “Latinos will be underrepresented by 500,000 students by the middle of

the twenty-first century” which is a overwhelming loss of human potential (MacDonald, 2003, p.
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39). In order to ensure equitable higher education for Chicanos in the future, vigilance and

activism are required today.

So, who goes to college? The ideal answer would be: anyone who wants to. Historically,

we know this not to be the case. This paper explored the struggles of both women and Chicanos

to gain access to higher education and their successes in doing so. Women gained access through

seminaries, normal schools, women’s colleges, and eventually state and private institutions

opening their doors for coeducation. Chicanos who for a long time were denied proper K-12

education, gained access to higher education by organizing for their rights in El Movimento

during the 1960s and 1970s, and eventually through federal recognition in the 1980s and 1990s.

To conclude, by challenging the dominant narrative that only rich white men could receive a

higher education, women and Chicanos gained access to institutions of higher education.
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References

Gordon, L. D. (1991). From seminary to university: An overview of women's higher education,

1870 - 1920. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

MacDonald, V.M., & Garciá, T. (2003). Historical perspectives on Latino access to higher
education, 1848-1990. In J. Castellanos & L. Jones (Eds.), The majority in the minority:
Expanding the representation of Latina/o faculty, administrators and students in higher
education (pp. 15-43).

Thelin, J.R. (2011). A history of American higher education (2nd ed.). Baltimore, MD: Johns
Hopkins University Press.