Women's colleges in the Southern United States

Lists and tables

Seven Sisters of the South

• Agnes Scott College – Decatur, Georgia
• Brenau University – Gainesville, Georgia
• Hollins University – Roanoke, Virginia
• Mary Baldwin University – Staunton, Virginia
• Salem College – Winston-Salem, North Carolina
• Sweet Briar College – Sweet Briar, Virginia
• Wesleyan College – Macon, Georgia

  Historically black colleges

Current women's colleges in the South

• 1772: Little Girls' School, : Originally established as a primary school, it later developed as an academy, and finally a college. It is the oldest female educational establishment that is still a women's college, and the oldest female institution in the Southern United States.
• 1833: Columbia Female Academy : Founded as an academy, it later became a college. It is the second-oldest female educational establishment that is still a women's college. Missouri is in the Upper South. It was settled by planters along the Mississippi River.
• 1838: Judson Female Institute : Founded in Marion, Alabama, it became Judson College in 1903.
• 1839: Georgia Female College : This is the oldest school to be founded as a college for women.
• 1842: Valley Union Seminary : Established in Roanoke, Virginia as a coeducational school, it became a school for women in 1852, and was renamed Hollins Institute in 1855. As the curriculum was developed, it was renamed Hollins College in 1911, and Hollins University in 1998.
• 1842: Augusta Female Seminary : Founded in Staunton, Virginia, it was renamed as Mary Baldwin Seminary in 1895, Mary Baldwin College in 1923 after curriculum development, and Mary Baldwin University in 2016.
• 1854: Columbia College
• 1873: Bennett College : Founded in Greensboro, North Carolina as a coeducational school, it became a women's college in 1926.
• 1878: Georgia Baptist Female Seminary : Despite its name, the college was never formally associated with any church or religious group. Founded in Gainesville, Georgia, it became Brenau College in 1900 and Brenau University in 1992. The university still boasts its robust Women's College on its historic Gainesville campus today, educating women to be, as its motto states, "as gold refined by fire."
• 1881: Atlanta Baptist Female Seminary : In 1924 it was the second historically black female institution to receive its collegiate charter, making it the second oldest historically black women's college.
• 1889: Converse College: Founded in Spartanburg, South Carolina
• 1889: Decatur Female Seminary : Founded in Decatur, Georgia, it became the Agnes Scott Institute in 1890, and Agnes Scott College in 1906.
• 1891: Baptist Female University : Founded in Raleigh, North Carolina, it became the Baptist University for Women in 1891, and Meredith College in 1909.
• 1901: Sweet Briar College: founded in Sweet Briar, Virginia; announced on March 3, 2015 that it was closing at the end of the 2014–15 school year. The alumnae, current students, and friends of the college took to the courts to battle the administrators' decision. Before the college officially closed, the Virginia Attorney General declared on June 20, 2015 that the college is to remain open. Sweet Briar is accepting applications.

  Former and defunct women's schools

• 1814: Louisburg Female Academy : Founded in North Carolina; Louisburg Female College, founded in 1857. Later merged with Franklin Male Academy.
• 1818: Elizabeth Female Academy: First female educational institution in Mississippi; it closed in 1843.
• 1819: Nazareth Academy : Founded as an academy in Bardstown, Kentucky, it moved to the nearby community of Nazareth in 1822, and first received authority to grant degrees in 1829. The Sisters of Charity of Nazareth, which has operated the institution from its creation, opened a branch campus in Louisville in 1920. The school became Spalding College in 1969, moved all instruction to Louisville in 1971, admitted its first men in 1973, and became a "University" in 1984.
• 1821: Clinton Female Seminary: Georgia. Forerunner to Wesleyan College.
• 1827: Knoxville Female Academy: Rechartered as the East Tennessee Female Institute in 1846, which granted "Mistress of Polite Literature" degrees; closed in 1911.
• 1831: LaGrange Female Academy : Founded in LaGrange, Georgia, it became LaGrange Female College in 1851, and coeducational in 1953.
• 1835: Livingston Female Academy and State Normal College : It became coeducational in 1915.
• 1839: Farmville Female Seminary Association : Founded in Farmville, Virginia, it became a four-year college in 1860; it became coeducational in 1976.
• 1841: Asheville Female Seminary: Later renamed Asheville Female College.
• 1842: Fulton Female Academy : Founded in Fulton, Missouri, it closed in 1928.
• 1846: Greensboro Female College: Charted in 1838 in Greensboro, North Carolina; it is now the coeducational school Greensboro College.
• 1847: Kentucky Female Orphan School : Became fully coeducational in 2016 when it admitted men into its daytime undergraduate program, the last component of the school that remained women-only. The school had offered coeducational evening/weekend and online programs for several years before going fully coed.
• 1851: Tennessee and Alabama Female Institute : It was the first women's college to grant academic college degrees to women that were the equivalent of those given to men; the college closed due to financial hardship in 1896.
• 1853: Hagerstown Female Seminary : in Hagerstown, Maryland. It closed in 1911.
• 1855: Davenport Female College : Founded in Lenoir, North Carolina. Chartered by the North Carolina General Assembly in 1859. Merged with Greensboro College in 1938.
• 1855: Mansfield Female College: Founded in Mansfield, Louisiana, it is claimed to be the first women's college west of the Mississippi River. Merged with Centenary College of Louisiana in 1930.
• 1857: Charlotte Female Institute: founded in Charlotte, North Carolina; became the coeducational Queens University of Charlotte after World War II.
• 1857: Peace Institute : Founded in Raleigh, North Carolina; changed name first to Peace College, and then to the current name when it became coeducational in 2012.
• 1865: Ward Seminary for Young Ladies: Founded in Nashville, Tennessee; merged with Belmont College for Young Women in 1913 to form Ward-Belmont College. In 1951, Ward-Belmont College was sold to the Tennessee Baptist Convention, under whom it became coeducational and its name was shortened to Belmont College.
• 1867: Scotia Seminary : It was the first historically black female institution of higher education established after the American Civil War. It became a women's college in 1916. It became a coeducational school in 1954. It lost its accreditation in 2004.
• 1869: Young's Female College, in Thomasville, Georgia was founded in 1869. It had 15 teachers and 115 students in 1906.
• 1870: Sullins College: Founded in Bristol, VA in 1870, it originally operated a high school as well as a junior college. The high school was discontinued after WW II. The junior college, which offered associate degrees in both liberal arts and fine arts, closed in 1976.
• 1873: Blue Mountain College: Founded in Northeast Mississippi, it remained focused on women's education until 1956, when a program to train men for church-related vocations was started. In October 2005, the Board of Trustees voted to make the school co-educational.
• 1875: Mount Hermon Female Seminary: Founded in Clinton, Mississippi, it closed in 1924.
• 1881: Incarnate Word School : Located in San Antonio, Texas and originally chartered as a women's college, it absorbed an all-female secondary school early in its history, adding college classes in 1909. It became coeducational in 1970.
• 1881: Tillotson College: Founded as a coeducational school, it was a women's college from 1926–1935. It became coeducational and has developed as Huston-Tillotson University with additional programs.
• 1883: Belhaven College for Young Ladies, : Opened in 1894 and located in Jackson, Mississippi. The school became coeducational in 1954.
• 1883: Hartshorn Memorial College founded in Richmond, Virginia. In 1932, it merged with Virginia Union University.
• 1884: Industrial Institute & College, : It was the first public women's college; became coeducational in 1982 as a result of the Supreme Court's Mississippi University for Women v. Hogan case, but maintained its original name.
• 1886: Mary Allen Seminary : Founded in Crockett, Houston County, Texas. It became coeducational in 1933.
• 1886: H. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College: Became coeducational in 2007
• 1889: Georgia Normal and Industrial College: The coordinate college for Georgia Tech, it granted its first degrees in 1917. After two name changes, the Women's College of Georgia became coeducational in 1967. Three more name changes followed, with the current name of Georgia College & State University adopted in 1996.
• 1890: Belmont College for Young Womenlege: It become coeducational and changed its nWard Seminary for Young Ladies.
• 1891: North Carolina Women's Collge: It became the coeducational University of North Carolina at Greensboro in 1963.
• 1896: Alabama Girls Industrial School: Becae coeducational in 1956 and changed its name to University of Montevallo in 1969.
• 1896: Barber Memorial College: Founded in Anniston, Alabama, it merged with Scotia Women's College in Concord, North Carolina in 1930 to become Barber-Scotia Junior College
• 1905: Florida State College for Women: Founded as the coeducational West Florida Seminary in 1851, it went through four name changes in its first half-century, becoming Florida State College in 1901. The school then became a women's college in 1905. In 1947, it returned to coeducation and adopted its current name of Florida State University.
• 1908: State Normal and Industrial School for Women at Fredericksburg: After changing its name to Mary Washington College in 1938, it became the coordinate women's college of The University of Virginia in 1944. MWC was separated from UVA in 1972, two years after both schools became fully coeducational. MWC adopted its current name of the University of Mary Washington in 2004.
• 1908: State Normal and Industrial School for Women at Harrisonburg: Became de facto coeducational in 1946, by which time it was known as Madison College, and became officially coeducational in 1966. Adopted its current name of James Madison University in 1976.
• 1921: Villa Madonna College: Founded in Covington, Kentucky as a women's college, but conducted many coeducational classes through an affiliation with the all-male St. Thomas More College. In 1945, Villa Madonna became coeducational when St. Thomas More was merged into it. The school's current name of Thomas More College was adopted in 1968, the same year it moved to its current campus in Crestview Hills.
• 1925: Mount Saint Joseph College for Women: Founded as a junior college in the rural Daviess County, Kentucky community of Maple Mount, it soon opened a coeducational extension branch in nearby Owensboro. The extension branch eventually became a second campus, although the Maple Mount campus remained all-female. In 1950, Mount Saint Joseph merged its two campuses into a single coeducational institution at the Owensboro site. The following year, the school became Brescia College, and it adopted its current name of Brescia University in 1998.
• 1938: Ursuline College'': Located in Louisville, Kentucky, it merged into the previously all-male Bellarmine College, also in Louisville, in 1968. The merged school adopted its current name of Bellarmine University in 2000.

  Coeducation

"In limited circumstances, a gender-based classification favoring one sex can be justified if it intentionally and directly assists members of the sex that is disproportionately burdened." She argued that there are a disproportionate number of women who are nurses, and that denying admission to men "lends credibility to the old view that women, not men, should become nurses, and makes the assumption that nursing is a field for women a self-fulfilling prophecy."