Women's College Coalition

Believing that women deserved an education comparable to that given men -- a radical view for that era -- the Moravians began a school for girls in 1772. In 1802, it became a boarding school for girls and young women; in 1866, it was renamed Salem Female Academy. Salem began granting college degrees in the 1890s.

Simmons College was founded in 1899 by Boston businessman John Simmons, who had a revolutionary idea — that women should be able to earn independent livelihoods and lead meaningful lives. It was this same spirit of inclusion and empowerment that produced the first African-American Simmons graduate in 1914, and made Simmons one of the only private colleges that did not impose admission quotas on Jewish students during the first half of the 1900s.

Russell Sage College was founded in Troy in 1916 by suffragist Margaret Olivia Slocum Sage, with the guidance of Eliza Kellas, head of the college preparatory Emma Willard School (also located in Troy). Together they founded Russell Sage College as a school of practical arts, one of the very first institutions to offer women the means of economic and social independence through preparation for professional careers.

Mount Saint Mary’s University was established in 1925 by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet. Since their founding in Le Puy, France, in 1650, the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet (CSJs) have been faithful to their original mission of "helping women become all they are capable of being" and of "serving all persons without distinction."

Founded by Sarah Worthington Peter in 1848, Moore College of Art & Design is the first and only women’s visual arts college in the nation. Established as the Philadelphia School of Design for Women, the College continues to thrive on the promise of empowering women to achieve financial independence by providing a high-quality, career-focused education. 

In 1838, at a time when formal education for women was rare, several people of extraordinary faith and vision had the goal of establishing a school in Marion, Alabama to provide young women with an education of the same quality men received at Harvard or Yale. The founders named the school The Judson Female Institute after Ann Hasseltine Judson, the first American woman to serve as a foreign missionary.