Monday, March 13 — The first state college for women was created this month in 1884 in Mississippi. Known as the Mississippi Industrial Institute and College, classes opened in the fall of the next year on the campus of a former college in Columbus. Now called the Mississippi University for Women, it is ranked as one of the top schools in the annual list of “America’s Best Colleges.” The now coed school of nearly 3,000 students has a number its campus buildings on the National Register of Historic Places. Across the U.S. today, there are some 19.1 million graduate and undergraduate students enrolled in colleges. Nearly 56 percent are women. That’s about 7 percent of the female population over the age of 3.
Profile America is in its 20th year as a public service of the U.S. Census Bureau.
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