Article contents
Note on Age Structure of College Students
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 February 2017
Extract
During the past decade college student enrollment has encompassed increasing numbers of students older than the traditional age range of seventeen to twenty-three. A historical review of college student age suggests that this is not a new precedent and that students in the colonial colleges spanned a wide age range, from early adolescence to adults over thirty. This age span persisted in various forms at many institutions but finally compressed to the traditional age pattern for the most part, with the formation and growth of American high schools beginning in 1880. The following discussion of student age follows a rough chronological and geographic pattern beginning with New England colonial colleges and ending in the latter 19th century at midwestern state universities.
- Type
- Discussion
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © 1983 by History of Education Society
References
Notes
1. Brubacher, J. and Rudy, W., Higher Education in Transition (New York, 1958), p. 12.Google Scholar
2. Wilson, J., Harvard College Records, Part I, 1636–1750 (Cambridge, 1925), p. 134.Google Scholar
3. Morison, S. E., Harvard College in the 17th Century, Parts I and II. (Cambridge, 1939), p. 75.Google Scholar
4. Ibid, p. 450.Google Scholar
5. French, R. D., The Memorial Quadrangle: A Book About Yale (New Haven, 1929), p. 162.Google Scholar
6. Thwing, C., A History of Higher Education in America (New York, 1906), p. 36.Google Scholar
7. Allmendinger, D. F. Jr., Paupers and Scholars (New York, 1975), p. 10–11.Google Scholar
8. Eliot, C., “The History of American Teaching,” Educational Review 42, (1911): 359.Google Scholar
9. Hofstader, R., Academic Freedom in the Age of the College (New York, 1955), p. 160.Google Scholar
10. Cheyney, E., History of the University of Pennsylvania, 1740–1940 (Philadelphia, 1940), p. 179.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
11. Montgomery, T., A History of the University of Pennsylvania from its Foundation to AD 1770, p. 269.Google Scholar
12. Cheyney, E., History of the University of Pennsylvania, 1740–1940, p. 180.Google Scholar
13. Barnard, F. A. P., Analysis of Some Statistics of Collegiate Education (New York, 1905), p. 62.Google Scholar
14. Rudolph, F., The American College (New York, 1962), p. 104.Google Scholar
15. Richardson, L. B., History of Dartmouth College (Hanover, 1932), p. 546.Google Scholar
16. Wayland, F., Thoughts on the Present College System (Boston, 1842), pp. 105–107.Google Scholar
17. Morison, S. E., The Development of Harvard University Since the Inauguration of President Eliot, 1869–1929 (Cambridge, 1930), p. 128.Google Scholar
18. Rudolph, F., Mark Hopkins and the Log, Williams College, 1836–1872 (New Haven, 1956), p. 70.Google Scholar
19. Bishop, M., A History of Cornell (Ithaca, 1962), p. 154.Google Scholar
20. Downs, C. B., History of the Class of 1857, Jefferson College, Canonsburg, Pennsylvania (Granville, Ohio, 1886), p. 89.Google Scholar
21. Adams, G. B., “The College in the University,” Educational Review 33 (1907): 132–133.Google Scholar
22. Hofstader, R., Academic Freedom in the Age of the College, p. 226.Google Scholar
23. Thomas, W., “Trends in the Age of College Graduation,” Popular Science Monthly 53 (1903): 159.Google Scholar
24. Brubacher, J., Higher Education in Transition, p. 238.Google Scholar
25. Fletcher, R., A History of Oberlin College (Chicago, 1943), p. 507.Google Scholar
26. Thomas, W., “Trends in the Age of College Graduation,” p. 160.Google Scholar
27. Metzger, W. P., Academic Freedom in the Age of the University (New York, 1955), p. 22.Google Scholar
28. Rudolph, F., The American College, p. 281.Google Scholar
29. Curti, M. and Carstensen, F., The University of Wisconsin—1848–1925 (Madison, 1949), p. 187.Google Scholar
30. Ross, E. D., History of Iowa State College (Ames, Iowa, 1942), p. 22.Google Scholar
31. Henderson, J., Admission to College by Certificate (New York, 1912), p. 44.Google Scholar
32. Rudolph, F., The American College, p. 283.Google Scholar
33. Curti, M., The University of Wisconsin, p. 662.Google Scholar
34. Krug, E., The Shaping of the American High School (New York, 1964), p. 158.Google Scholar
35. Ibid, p. 160.Google Scholar
36. Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Progress Toward a Better Adjustment Between the College and the Secondary School (New York, 1911), p. 160.Google Scholar
37. Bowman, M., “The Land Grant Colleges and Universities in Human Resource Development,” Journal of Economic History 22 (1962): 129.Google Scholar
38. Krug, E., The Shaping of the American High School, p. 262–263.Google Scholar
- 3
- Cited by