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Appendixes: Appendix A, Appendix B

Admissions standards were also flexible. In 1840, prospective students were expected to possess "good moral character"- and entrance was gained by examination. Deficiencies in specific subjects could be made up by enrolling in the preparatory department. Students thus entered Indiana-Asbury when they were prepared or had saved enough money. As a result, there was a broad range in the ages of DePauw students, with boys of 13 in the preparatory department and men in their mid-30s enrolled in the collegiate courses. The median age of graduates rose from 21.5 in the 1840s to 23.7 in the 1890s. The admission of women in 1867 and creation of music, art, and other professional schools in the mid-1880s further added to the diversity of the student population. Women were about four years younger than the men, while ministerial students were three to four years older than others. Although women were required to lived on campus after construction of Ladies Hall in 1884, most men continued to live out in town in private boarding houses or with their families or relatives. There was also a high turnover of students from one academic year to the next. Many students attended DePauw for only one or two years, and only one-fourth to one-third of entering freshmen graduated four years later. As late as the 1930s, less than 30 percent of all students who had attended DePauw since 1837 had actually graduated.

The most significant demographic change in the last seventy-five years has been the increase in the number of students. Most of this growth occurred in a brief twenty year period after 1905 when enrollment in the College of Liberal Arts soared from an average of 460 between 1900 and 1910 to almost 800 in the 1910s, and over 1400 during the 1920s. After declining by 300 during the Great Depression, enrollment again expanded to an average of 1700 students during the post war years and peaked at 2200 when the baby-boom generation entered college in the 1960s. Liberal arts students have declined slightly in the last two decades, but expansion in the School of Music and the addition of the School of Nursing in 1955 has kept total undergraduate enrollment between 2300 and 2400 over the last four decades.

The number of earned degrees has grown even more rapidly. Less than 700 degrees were awarded during the first decade of the twentieth century. In the 1920s, DePauw granted over 2200 degrees and over 5300 during the 1970s. Over half of the 30,300 degrees granted by DePauw during its 150-year history have been given since 1958, and 73 percent of the degrees have been awarded in the last 50 years (1938-87) compared to less than four percent during the first 50 years (1837-87). Only five percent of DePauw degrees have been masters degrees. Most alumni are still alive, and their vast increase in numbers after World War II has made them an influential group in shaping the life of the university.

Women achieved numerical parity with men in the early twentieth century. In the first two decades of coeducation, women comprised about one-fourth of the liberal arts students but earned only 16 percent of the degrees. By 1891, 43 percent of the students were women and they have made up 45 to 50 percent of the student population ever since. Equally significant, by 1900 women were earning degrees in proportion to their numbers, and in most decades of the 20th century, the proportion of women graduates is greater than their representation in the student population. This collective record of women's scholarship is very impressive, especially since until recently, women did not have equal access to scholarship funds.

The creation of the Rector Scholarship Foundation in 1919 had a revolutionary impact on the student population. Edward Rector's beneficence remade DePauw during the 1920s and 1930s. By providing 400 full scholarships to the brightest male high school graduates, Rector sustained DePauw's continued growth while raising academic standards.

About one half of the male students during these decades were Rector Scholars. The program also broadened the social composition of male students while enlarging class divisions between male and female students. Women, who were denied Rector Scholarships in these years, increasingly came from wealthier families than the men.
Rector based this discrimination on the fear that DePauw was becoming "feminized."

In the 1910s slightly over half of the students were women, and it was believed that if this trend continued men might avoid coming to a school with a female majority. The Rector Scholarships boosted enrollment and increased social diversity at the same time. As late as the mid-1930s, almost 44 percent of all DePauw students were still first-generation college students. Only one-third had at least one parent with a college degree, while only 12 percent had a parent who had attended DePauw. More youths were coming from midwestern cities like Chicago, Indianapolis, and St. Louis, but even in 1931, one fifth of the students still came from farm families.

The Rector money also broadened the geographic and religious origins of DePauw students. In 1911, 88 percent of the students were Hoosiers; this fell to 38 percent by World War II. The share of Illinois students jumped from 5 to 36 percent and students from other midwestern states grew from two to 17 percent, while students from outside the midwest doubled to eight percent. DePauw in the 1920s and 1930s was moving beyond its traditional Indiana origins and was on the threshold of becoming a truly national institution in terms of student enrollment. There was an even more dramatic shift away from DePauw's traditional Methodist base. In 1916, about three-fourths of DePauw students were Methodists; this had plummeted to 40 percent by 1941.

Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Episcopalians, and Lutherans achieved significant representation in the student population, growing from a combined total of 13 to 36 percent. There was even a small Roman Catholic population (about 4 percent) for the first time, but no significant increase in the number of Jews or blacks.

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Appendixes: Appendix A, Appendix B