<p>Here’s a question I’ve been trying to research without success. I’ll bet someone on this forum knows the answer. There were nine colleges operating during the American colonial era - seven of the Ivies (all but Cornell) plus William & Mary and Rutgers. In the interest of a Top Ten list, what would be the tenth oldest American college?</p>
<p>The answer’s not as simple as it sounds. There’s the date that a school is founded, then a different date when it actually opens its doors. But there are a number of colleges claiming ancient starting dates - even pre-1776 dates - which were not colleges at the time they started. So the effective date would be the date that they were actually chartered as a college.</p>
<p>I scanned listings of colleges in the states that made up the 13 colonies and thought that number 10 might be the University of Georgia (1785). Then I found a reference to Transylvania College in KY having opened in 1780 and I assumed that surely they must have been tenth. But on Transy’s website, they claim that they were sixteenth. What was tenth?</p>
<p>That’s the site where I found Transylvania. But Transy’s website says “Kentucky still marked the nation’s western frontier in 1780 when Transylvania became the sixteenth college in the U.S. and the first college west of the Allegheny Mountains.” So apparently, there are apparently six others that started between 1776 and 1780.</p>
<p>Washington and Lee University - is consistently ranked among the nation’s top liberal arts colleges and is the ninth oldest institution of higher education in America. This private university was founded in 1749 as Augusta Academy, with the name later changed to Liberty Hall Academy (1776), Washington Academy (1798), Washington College (1813) and, in 1871, Washington and Lee University.</p>
<p>Willmingtonwave’s link above shows W&L as one of those schools that opened (in 1749) as something other than a college and later upgraded to college status. But according to that source, W&L chartered as a college in 1782, which was after Transy, which claims to be 16th. I have a feeling that there’s not going to be a clear consensus.</p>
<p>Both Hampden-Sydney and Washington College claim that they’re the 10th oldest. :p</p>
<p>
I think it comes down to founding versus charters. By that reasoning, Transylvania would be #10 by charter date and #18 by founding date. St. John’s would be #10 by founding date and #15 by charter date.</p>
<p>Interesting . . . I’d have never thought to look at H-S and Washington. H-S claims a 1775 founding, but the concept of nine Colonial colleges is pretty well ingrained, so I’d have to think that there was some gap before they opened their doors. And Washington says they’re tenth, two years AFTER Transy.</p>
<p>Another one I wouldn’t have guessed. From their website, it appears that they fall into the category of those who were originally founded as a lower school and eventually opened a college as an extension of it. On their website, Moravian says that they opened the college extension in 1807.</p>
<p>Then there’s College of Charleston, which I believe (depending on how you define) is the 13th oldest college , being founded in 1770. It was founded by three signers of the Declaration of Independence and three men involved in the design of the U.S. Constitution</p>
<p>I was going to say, but someone beat me to it, that when I attended Washington College, they claimed to be tenth oldest. I forget what the exact dates involved were, though.</p>