“… Last year, 45 percent of young females in college, including those enrolled part time and at community college, lived with family. Among those not in college, a third lived with family.” …
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/11/11/us-usa-women-relatives-idUSKCN0T01X820151111
No surprises here. I was especially not surprised that the lowest percentage was in 1960 - those were the days of very young marriages.
Is it true that only 5% of young women were enrolled in college in 1960? Actually, that does surprise me a little, having been a young girl at the time that expected to go to college. Or maybe that’s why my mother insisted that I take shorthand so that I could be employable. :-/
College completion rates were pretty low in 1960 for everyone, not just women. The [1960 Census reveals](https://www.census.gov/hhes/socdemo/education/data/cps/1960/cp60pcs1-20/cp60pcs1-20.pdf) that just 8 percent of the general population had 4 or more years of college in 1960. College wasn’t necessary for the vast majority of jobs in the American economy, and the federal government hadn’t really gotten into the business of aiding students in the endeavor - Stafford loans didn’t come online until the mid-1960s. Plus, colleges and universities could legally use discriminatory admissions practices to bar all but the wealthiest Protestant white upper-class men from campus if they really wanted to. Most universities didn’t actually start admitting women until the mid-to-late 1960s and early 1970s, and the number of women’s colleges was much smaller than the number of men’s colleges and universities.
"Most universities didn’t actually start admitting women until the mid-to-late 1960s and early 1970s, "
The Ivies (except for Cornell) didn’t but that’s hardly “all universities.” They are just a sliver, quite frankly. Plenty of elite colleges and universities were coeducational from birth or shortly thereafter. The Ivies were just dreadfully late to the game, that’s all.
State universities educated tons more people than Ivies ever did. Were there any state universities that were NOT coed at least by 1900?
Adding to PG’s post. There were also women’s colleges that admitted only women.
U-Va went coed in 1970.
The Wikipedia article on mixed-sex colleges is quite illuminating. It’s very clear that many universities that educated the vast majority of people – the state universities and land-grant universities - were coed for years and years. Berkeley, Michigan, Illinois, Penn State, Ole Miss, U Texas – coed since before 1900, and of course have educated far more people than the Ivies. In addition, many schools considered elite today were coed since before 1900 – Pomona, Stanford, Northwestern, U of Chicago, Swarthmore …
It’s just not at all true that “most colleges and universities did not start admitting women til the 60’s/70’s.” This reminds me of a really old thread with Northstarmom where she tried to say that the Ivies were leading edge in this regard. @@
The original Pew article is not so alarming: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/11/11/record-share-of-young-women-are-living-with-their-parents-relatives/.
Note:
So, one could say, the majority of women (and men) 18 - 34 years of age either live with their parents, or are supported by their parents. Most likely, the lion’s share of people under 30 living independently are employed, not in school, and/or married.
Unskilled workers don’t earn enough to live independently. Even educated workers may not invest in real estate, as the first years of a job may require one to move. Why buy or rent a place in your hometown, when you can live at home and save the money?
If your 18-34 y.o. child won $200,000 in the lottery, would you advise him or her to buy a house?
It aligns with the housing market recovering from a distorting bubble: http://www.millersamuel.com/charts/49-year-homeownership-rate-us-census-1q14/.
Correct, UVa admitted women for nursing and some grad programs before 1970, but not for the main undergrad programs. Women were supposed to attend “The Mary Washington College of UVa” in Fredericksburg. That college became independent and co-ed, and is now a university. Women could also attend what was called “The George Mason College of UVa” in No. Va.
By 1979, UVa undergrads were 50-50 male-female, and now women make up a larger percentage.
Most Catholic colleges were single sex, or admitted women only to specific divisions or colleges with the university, usually a school of nursing. Thus, Georgetown U’s school of arts and sciences was all male. So was Boston College’s; women could attend the School of Nursing. Notre Dame was all male; St. Mary’s was its “sister” school.