List of earliest coeducational colleges and universities in the United States

The following is a list of mixed-sex colleges and universities in the United States, listed in the order that mixed-sex students were admitted to degree-granting college-level courses.

Many of the earliest mixed-education institutes offered co-educational secondary school-level classes for three or four years before co-ed college-level courses began – these situations are noted in the parentheticals below.

Earliest mixed-sex higher education institutes (through 19th century) Schools that were previously all-female are listed in bold. 1837 Oberlin College (women were admitted to the "preparatory department" in 1833) 1844 Hillsdale CollegeHillsdale College, 2016, Hillsdale College: 2015 - 2016 Catalog, Retrieved June 18, 2016, see page 101, first paragraph: "...In 1844, Hillsdale College was founded on the then truly exceptional precept of offering “all persons, irrespective of nationality, color or sex ... a literary and scientific education,” enrolling blacks, women ... two decades before the Civil War...." 1845 Franklin College (co-ed secondary-level classes began in 1842 at "Indiana Baptist Manual Labor Institute"; chartered as Franklin College in 1845)CMC What are America's first coed colleges? Although the integration of the sexes at CMC, and other liberal arts colleges, didn’t take place until the 1970s, many American universities started this process long ago in the 19th century, Retrieved June 17, 2016, "...But by 1861 ... there were more than 20 coeducational schools ... thanks to educational reformers fighting for access for women, black students, and minors, too...." 1847 Lawrence University Otterbein University Baylor College (until 1851 Baylor offered "coeducation" in the same building, although in separate classes; after 1851 the school fully segregated the sexes until 1887)Old Baylor ParkHenrietta Baker Embree, Tennessee Keys Embree, Amy L. Wink Univ. of Tennessee Press, 2008 Tandem Lives: The Frontier Texas Diaries of Henrietta Baker Embree and Tennessee Keys Embree, 1856-1884, Retrieved June 18, 2016, "....Baylor College ... 1846..." 1847 Earlham College 1849 New-York Central College (disestablished 1860)McGraw Historical Society, The New York Central College , Retrieved June 17, 2016 1851 Waynesburg College 1852 Westminster College 1853 Antioch CollegeCornell College (originally Iowa Conference Seminary, co-ed classes start with founding 1853)Lawrence University (co-ed secondary classes began in 1849)Monmouth College (admits women on equal basis from beginning)Willamette University (co-ed secondary classes began in 1842) 1854 Muskingum UniversityPacific University (co-ed secondary classes began in 1849)Urbana University (co-ed secondary classes began in 1850)2011-2012 student Handbook, Urbana University, Urbana Urbana University, Retrieved June 18, 2016, see page 4, paragraph 2, "...Urbana was a coeducational institution from its beginning..." 1855 Eureka College (admits women on an equal basis with men at its founding) Bates CollegeInfoplease, Bates College, Retrieve June 17, 2016, "...Bates College, at Lewiston, Maine; coeducational; founded 1855 as Maine State Seminary, chartered as a college 1864. It was the first Eastern college to admit women students. The Edmund S. Muskie Archives are there...."Sarah Connell, College Prowler, Inc, 2005, Bates College College Prowler Off the Record, Retrieved June 17, 2016University of Iowa (first coeducational public or state university in the United States) 1856 Baldwin University (now Baldwin Wallace University) (co-ed secondary classes began in 1845)University of Evansville (formerly Moore's Hill College)St. Lawrence University Wilberforce University (first coeducational HBCU in the United States) 1857 Alfred University (co-ed secondary classes began in 1836; it received its university charter in 1857)Hamline University (co-ed secondary classes began in 1854) 1858 University of Mount Union (co-ed classes began in 1846; chartered as college in 1858) 1859 Adrian College (four women enrolled as early as 1855 when Michigan Union College; Adrian itself was open to women from the onset under equal curriculum) Cooper Union (free college; enrollment open to all genders, races, religions, economic classes) Olivet College (co-ed secondary classes began in 1844; chartered as college in 1859)1860Wheaton College (Illinois) 1861Plainfield CollegeGrinnell College 1862 Baker University (co-ed secondary classes began in 1858) 1863 Kansas State University (First class at KSU in 1863 consisted of 52 students: 26 men and 26 women) 1864 Swarthmore CollegeBlackburn College 1866 University of Wisconsin–Madison (women admitted to classes in the "Normal Department" in 1863 and all college classes about 1866, although separate Female College and separate graduation existed until 1874) 1867 Carleton CollegeDePauw UniversityEast Tennessee Wesleyan University (now Tennessee Wesleyan University; formerly Athens Female College)Hiram College (co-ed secondary classes began in 1850)Indiana UniversityLebanon Valley CollegeWallace, Paul A. W. (1966) Lebanon Valley College: A Centennial History. Annville, PA: Lebanon Valley College Publishing.McDaniel College 1868 University of MissouriOregon State University (co-ed secondary classes began about 1858; chartered as college in 1868) Wells College (Coeducational in 2005)

University of Minnesota 1869 Berea College Boston University Iowa State University University of Kansas (co-ed secondary classes began in 1866)Northwestern UniversityOhio University Washington University in St. Louis (Women admitted to law school in 1869; first undergrad in 1870) 1870 Allegheny College University of the Pacific (United States) (co-ed secondary classes began in 1852) University of California, BerkeleyCarthage CollegeCornell UniversityUniversity of Illinois University of Iowa Medical SchoolKnox CollegeMichigan State UniversityCollege of Wooster 1871 Colby College (until 1890, when women were resegregated into separate classes)University of Michigan University of Nebraska–Lincoln Pennsylvania State UniversitySyracuse UniversityUniversity of Vermont 1872 Tusculum CollegeUniversity of Akron (at that time "Buchtel College")University of MaineUniversity of Washington (co-ed secondary classes began in 1861; the school was closed at various times between 1862 and 1869)Wesleyan University (until 1912, when it became all male once again) 1873 North Georgia Agricultural College, subsequently North Georgia College & State University; since 2013 merged into the University of North Georgia) Ohio State University Susquehanna University Texas Christian University 1875 Purdue University St. Olaf College 1876 University of OregonUniversity of Rio Grande 1877 University of Colorado at BoulderOhio Wesleyan University 1878 Hope College 1880 Bridgewater College (the first private liberal arts college in Virginia to be co-ed, and one of the first of its kind in the south)Emerson CollegeUniversity of Pennsylvania (women previously admitted to non-degree-granting programs in 1876)University of Southern California Ursinus College 1881 Coe College Hendrix College 1882 University of South Dakota 1883 Bucknell University Florida State University (The school was a coeducational seminary beginning in 1851, and was chartered as a coeducational university in 1883. However, in 1905, a reorganization of the state's higher education system converted what was then Florida State College to a women's school, Florida State College for Women. It returned to coeducation in 1947, adopting its current name at that time.) Middlebury CollegeUniversity of Texas 1884 University of North Dakota 1885 University of Mississippi 1886 University of Nevada, Reno 1887 Baylor UniversityGallaudet University (at the time "National Deaf-Mute College) Occidental CollegePomona CollegeStetson University (co-ed secondary classes began in 1883)University of Wyoming 1888 George Washington University Guilford College (co-ed secondary classes began in 1837; it became a college in 1888) University of Kentucky Tulane University Pharmaceutical School 1889 Elon UniversityHistory of Elon University: http://www.elon.edu/e-web/about/elon_history.xhtml West Virginia Universityhttp://wvuhistory.wvu.edu/historyofwvu/the_early_days_1867_1899 History of WVU: The Early Days 1891 University of Arizona George Fox University (at the time "Pacific College") College of Idaho Stanford University 1892 Auburn UniversityGreenville UniversityUniversity of Chicago (women resegregated into separate classes in 1902 for their first two years) University of New Mexico University of OklahomaAmerican International College 1893 University of Alabama University of Connecticut Johns Hopkins University Graduate School Macalester College University of Tennessee 1894 Boalt Hall 1895 Beloit CollegeUniversity of MontanaUniversity of Pittsburgh University of South Carolina 1897 University at Buffalo Law School University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (graduate students) 1899 Eastern Michigan University (co-ed classes in the "Normal school" began 1852; chartered as college in 1899)

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