Why are women's college allowed?

[Chronos]

Did you feel that the education you received was less than promised?

To be clear, I lived at a women-only school. I did not attend it. I have basically no information about the academics at Rosemont or any other exclusively female school.

[Irishman]

Chronos said:

My best guess is that Villanova had, at some point in the past, had a librarian who had an irrational dislike for science fiction, and dumped most of the collection, while the librarian at Rosemont at the time saw a bunch of library books available for free or cheap and took them without prejudice. Certainly some of the books in the Rosemont library had Villanova library imprints in them.

Fair enough. Being related to a female librarian (sister) and in an SF/Fantasy book club with a number of others, I do realize they exist.

ftg said:

My info about Spelman College is a bit out of date. But their policy was that student applications had to include an essay stating their interest in promoting issues of interest to “women of color”. (Yes, that was the phrase used.) So while a white student can apply, their essay might not go over so well.

Hmm, while I can see how that is a legitimate sorting factor (their charter is promoting women of color), I can also see how that might limit white and male entrants. Even a “white” woman would have to push to promote women of color, as opposed to just women.

Man: “Obviously women of color should be served with the best male candidates from which to draw their social partners, and I’m that best male candidate. Ergo, I should be kept readily available for the highest level of interaction with said women of color to give them the best opportunity to evaluate and, if so desire, choose me as their social partner.”
Zoe said:

That’s a rather broad statement – one that is not necessarily true. You haven’t known all of the African students and their relationships with all of the US students.

ftg did not say it was universal, only an observed trend.

Irishman: They don’t offer any advantages educationally over other universities, so there is no strong push for whites to pursue them.

Money Magazine has rated Fisk University among the nation’s “100 Best College Buys” for 15 consecutive years.

Fair enough, I should have said “necessarily”. It’s possible there are plenty of advantages and white students are uninformed. The point being that black colleges don’t have the name recognition and associated reputation of, say, Harvard, Yale, Brown, MIT, Purdue, etc. YMMV. I will admit to being woefully informed on the topic, even when I was picking colleges.

Chronos said:

To be clear, I lived at a women-only school. I did not attend it.

How does one get such an exalted state?

[phouka]

I graduated from Texas Woman’s University. At the time I attended, there had been a previous court case, and men were admitted to any graduate program and to a handful of undergrad programs - Nursing, Physical Therapy, and Occupational Therapy - that were considered top notch. The year I graduated, the university announced it would admit men into all undergrad and grad programs while remaining “primarily for women.”

The population at TWU was interesting. The average age of undergrads was, IIRC, 34. There was a very large commuter and returning student population. Only about 8% of the population was male, and I used to joke that they were either gay, married, or followed by armed girlfriends. There was usually one or two men per class in general studies, and most of them were also older, returning students who’d chosen the school for a specific program. I only ever knew one man there who appeared to have chosen TWU so that he could be surrounded by women. It took about a semester and a half for the women around him to realize he was trying to collect a harem, and he quickly became persona non grata. He may have transferred.