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Vassar College is a private liberal arts college in Poughkeepsie, New York, United States. Founded in 1861 by Matthew Vassar, it was the second degree-granting institution of higher education for women in the United States. The college became coeducational in 1969. The college offers BA degrees in more than fifty majors. Vassar College's varsity sports teams, known as the Brewers, play in the NCAA Division III as members of the Liberty League. Currently, there are close to 2,500 students.
Vassar College
Type
Private liberal arts college
Established
1861; 164 years ago
Academic affiliations
Annapolis GroupCLACCOFHENAICUOberlin Group
Endowment
$1.301 billion (2024)
President
Elizabeth H. Bradley
Academic staff
297 FT/ 61 PT (2023)
Undergraduates
2,456 (2023)
Suburban, 1,000 acres (400 ha)
Newspaper
The Miscellany News
Colors
Burgundy and affiliations
NCAA Division III – Liberty League
Mascot
The Brewer
The college is one of the historic Seven Sisters. The Vassar campus comprises over 1,000 acres (400 ha) and more than 100 buildings. A designated arboretum, the campus features more than 200 species of trees, a native plant preserve, and a 530-acre (210 ha) ecological preserve.
An 1861 oil portrait of Matthew Vassar by Charles Loring Elliott
Vassar was founded as a women's school under the name "Vassar Female College" in 1861. Its first president was Milo P. Jewett, who had previously been first president of another women's school, Judson College; he led a staff of ten professors and twenty-one instructors. After one year, its founder, Matthew Vassar, had the word Female removed from the name, prompting some local residents of Poughkeepsie, New York, to quip that its founder believed it might one day admit male students. The college became coeducational in 1969.
Vassar was the second of the Seven Sisters colleges, higher education schools that were strictly for women, and historically sister institutions to the all-male Ivy League colleges. It was chartered by its namesake, brewer Matthew Vassar, in 1861 in the Hudson Valley, about 70 miles (110 km) north of New York City. The first person appointed to the Vassar faculty was astronomer Maria Mitchell, in 1865.
The Main Building, built in 1861 by architect James Renwick Jr., had the most interior space of any building in the United States, until the United States Capitol was completed in 1868.
Vassar adopted coeducation in 1969. Immediately following World War II, Vassar accepted a small number of male students on the G.I. Bill. The formal decision to become co-ed came after its trustees declined an offer to merge with Yale University, its sibling institution, in the wave of mergers between the historically all-male colleges of the Ivy League and their Seven Sisters counterparts.
tents, signs, and people standing on green grass in front of the Vassar College Library
Liberation Lawn at Vassar College, one of the college protest encampments surrounding the List of pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses in 2024
In its early years, Vassar was associated with the social elite of the Protestant establishment. E. Digby Baltzell writes that "upper-class WASP families educated their children at colleges such as Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and Vassar." A select and elite few of Vassar's students were allowed entry into the school's secret society Delta Sigma Rho, founded in 1922. Before becoming President of the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a Trustee.
Approximately 2,450 students attend Vassar, and 98% live on campus. About 60% come from public high schools, and 40% come from private schools (both independent and religious). Vassar is currently 56% women and 44% men, at national average for national liberal arts colleges. Students are taught by more than 336 faculty members, virtually all holding the doctorate degree or its equivalent. The student-faculty ratio is 8:1, average class size, 17.
In recent freshman classes, students of color constituted 32–38% of matriculants. International students from over 60 countries make up 8–10% of the student body. In May 2007, Vassar returned to a need-blind admissions policy without regard to a student's financial status.
Vassar president Catharine Bond Hill departed in 2016. She was succeeded by Elizabeth Howe Bradley in 2017.
The college was listed as a census-designated place (Vassar College CDP) in 2019.
