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Are Same-Sex Colleges Still Relevant?

Last week, the board of Sweet Briar College, an all-women’s school in Virginia, announced that

it would be permanently shuttered in August due to “insurmountable financial challenges.” The school’s president, James Jones, Jr., attributed the close, in part, to the declining number of “young women willing to consider a single-sex education.” Is there still a place for same-sex colleges? Do they play an important role in education, or are they outdated?

Sweet Briar Is Fighting an Up-Hill Battle

Diane Halpern, the dean of social sciences at Minerva Schools at KGI and former president of the American Psychological Association, is the author of "Sex Differences in Cognitive Abilities."

UPDATED MARCH 10, 2015, 3:31 AM

The popular idea that single-sex education benefits women comes from anecdotes about female leaders who were educated in an era when elite colleges did not admit them.

Despite a beautiful campus, dedicated faculty, loyal alumnae and a significant endowment, Sweet Briar College is closing after 114 years. Too few students were choosing Sweet Briar, so the college discounted its tuition rate, a move that exacerbated its financial problems but did not succeed in attracting enough students.

As a small, rural, liberal arts women's college, Sweet Briar was fighting an up-hill battle against many trends in higher education. Although all of these variables probably contributed to the lack of student interest, President James Jones, Jr. acknowledged that declining interest in single-sex education was decisive in its demise. Data supports this conclusion: According to the Women's College Coalition, the number of women’s colleges declined from 230 to little more than 40 in the last half-century.

By many measures, today's women are flourishing in higher education and do not need a protected environment to develop their intellectual potential. Women are enrolled in higher education at higher rates than men and achieve better grades. Young women are at or near parity in many “traditionally male” professions including law and medicine.

While women are still underrepresented in positions of leadership and in some, but not all, math-intensive disciplines, there is no data to support the myth that single-sex colleges prepare women better to become leaders in our co-ed world or that their graduates are more likely to choose math-intensive career options.

The popular idea that single-sex education benefits women comes from anecdotes about female leaders who were educated in an era when elite colleges did not admit them. For example, Hillary Clinton attended Wellesley College, but she also graduated from Yale Law School, which was co-ed.