History of coeducation at Johns Hopkins University

Johns Hopkins University was established in 1876, admitting women and men to their well known graduate programs from the beginning. The university was also established with an undergraduate program that only admitted men up until 1970.
Admission of women to Johns Hopkins undergraduate programs was not considered until the late 1960s. Other well known universities like Yale and Harvard were beginning to admit female undergraduates. Johns Hopkins University thought admitting women to their undergraduate programs would improve the social environment and diversity.
In October of 1969 the University announced to the public their decision to admit women to their undergraduate programs. The final decision on coed admission was made by the academic council. In the fall of 1970, women were admitted into the undergraduate programs from all over the country.In the academic year 1970-1971, 4.7% of students in the Arts and Sciences programs were women. In the year 1985-1986 the proportion of female students in the Arts and Sciences programs had increased to around 38%. Today males at Johns Hopkins University are still the majority; however women now have the opportunity to attend the same programs at Johns Hopkins as their male counterparts.

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