What is the second-oldest institution of higher education in the United States?

The College of William & Mary in Virginia (also known as William & Mary, or W&M) is a public research university located in Williamsburg, Virginia, United States. Privately founded in 1693 by letters patent issued by King William III and Queen Mary II, it is the second-oldest institution of higher education in the United States after Harvard University and the oldest in the American South. William & Mary is one of the original eight "Public Ivies," a term coined by Richard Moll in 1985 for publicly funded universities providing a quality of education considered comparable to that available in the Ivy League.

William & Mary educated U.S. Presidents Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, and John Tyler as well as other key figures important to the development of the nation, including U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall, Speaker of the House Henry Clay, sixteen members of the Continental Congress, and four signers of the Declaration of Independence. W&M founded the Phi Beta Kappa academic honor society in 1776 and was the first school of higher education in the United States to install an honor code of conduct for students. The establishment of graduate programs in law and medicine in 1779 makes it one of the first universities in the United States.

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9 Comments

Tom Knox

Howard Groopman, what college did you attend that crushed them in football?

james parrillo

Somehow, I thought Rutgers and Princeton would both be in the choices, as first. I found later that they both started in the following century. From these choices, I thought William and Mary might be have been the very first, with Rutgers being second. I learned a bit about the history of higher education in America today. Thank you, Christine, James' wife

Howard Groopman

Good question. I knew Harvard was first and Wm/Mary and Yale weren't far behind. I went with the one we called "Bill and Mary" back in the days when we'd crush them in football.

earlepg

teacherchicky, I know how you feel and I doubt that we're alone. I've accumulated twice as many replaces and 50/50s as the other two. Having more replaces doesn't make it easy to use them. I still go for a stab at the answer rather than giving up, whether that stab is educated or not. Rather than getting rewarded with useless hints, I'd like more point enhancements, but they are very elusive. When I try chasing them, it seems like I'm chasing them away instead.

teacherchicky

The helps we receive in these bonus rounds are "supposed" to be random but I find it interesting that I keep winning the 50)50 and replace helps that I NEVER use! I may be setting a record for the most replace helps and I'm working on the record for the 50/50 ones! Why don't I ever win the ones I use most often?! I'm just going to start rejecting every question I'm not completely positive about but I don't know what I'm going to do with the other ones!