Women’s colleges in the United States uniquely prepare women for success by offering a strong academic curriculum, professors who challenge them to excel and a network of graduates who assist them upon graduation and throughout their professional lives. Women’s college graduates are well-prepared to attain top positions in their career fields, and higher salaries than women graduates of co-educational institutions.
These women are among the fewer than 4% of college-educated women who graduated from a women’s college. Although small in number, women’s college graduates are influential as indicated by the following statistics from the Women’s College Coalition:
- Of ‘Business Week’ magazine’s list of the top 50 women who are ‘rising stars in corporate America’, 30% earned a bachelor’s degree from a women’s college.
- Of the 1992 ‘Fortune 1000’ companies, one third of women board members are graduates of women’s colleges.
- Of ‘Black Enterprise Magazine’s 20 most powerful African-American women in corporate America, 20% are women’s college graduates.
Undergraduate Programs
Women are earning an increasingly larger share of bachelor’s degrees in business. In 1995, women earned 48% of undergraduate business degrees, compared to 9% in 1971.
By participating in campus and community organizations, students apply the theories they learn in the class-room to real-world situations. Business internships, which place students with employers such as Andersen Consulting and Paine Webber for a limited period of time to gain experience and supplement their education, are invaluable. A college’s career service office helps students locate top internship and career opportunities as well as professional and graduate schools.
Continuing Residential & Graduate Programs
Many women’s colleges, in addition to their residential programs for women, offer continuing education and graduate programs designed for both men and women who maintain full-time jobs in addition to family and community responsibilities. Both undergraduate and graduate students have close contact with their professors, and course formats are designed to fit their busy schedules.
Flexible formats may include independent, guided study, on-line courses, on-campus classes in the evenings, on weekends and during the day, and short-format courses. Credit is often given for prior learning experienced outside the classroom, while external degree and Internet-based programs allow students to earn a degree from a quality institution without having to relocate or leave their jobs.
Women and men studying business at graduate level may enrol in an accredited Internet-based Master of Business Administration Program, with emphases on topics such as entrepreneurial business or management. Regardless of where the students live, they can complete all of their coursework, and converse with their professors and fellow students over the Internet.
In 196, women owned one-third of all business in the United States, according to the National Foundation for Women Business Owners. The foundation reports that since 1987 the number of women-owned US businesses grew by 78% to reach 7.95 million in 1996, outpacing the 47% growth rate for all US firms during this same period. In 1996, women-owned businesses generated $2.28 trillion in revenue, and employed 18.5 million people, representing 26% of the US workforce.
With a significant and growing segment of the business world being filled, managed and owned by women, a business degree from a high-quality institution becomes invaluable.
