Colonial colleges

The colonial colleges are nine institutions of higher education founded in the Thirteen Colonies, predating the United States. As the only American universities old enough to have alumni that participated in the American Revolution and the founding of the United States, these schools have been identified as a group for their influence on U.S. history.
While all nine colonial colleges were founded as private institutions, two later became public universities: the College of William & Mary in 1906, and Rutgers University in 1945. The remaining seven are all members of the Ivy League and remain private : Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Penn, Brown, and Dartmouth.

Nine colonial colleges

Seven of the nine colonial colleges began their histories as institutions of higher learning. The other two developed out of existing preparatory schools. The University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy League university in Philadelphia, began operating in 1751 as the Academy of Philadelphia, a secondary school founded by Benjamin Franklin, and later added an institution of higher education in 1755 following the granting of a charter to the College of Philadelphia. Dartmouth College, an Ivy League college in Hanover, New Hampshire, began operating in 1768 as the collegiate department of Moor's Charity School, a secondary school founded in 1754 by Eleazar Wheelock, the college's founder. Dartmouth considers its founding date to be 1769, when it was granted a collegiate charter.

Image	Colonial college	Colony	Founded	Chartered	First instruction	First degrees	Primary religious influence	Ivy League
	Harvard College	Massachusetts Bay Colony	1636	1650	1642	1642	Congregationalist	Yes
	College of William & Mary	Colony of Virginia	1693	1693	1694	1694	Church of England, later Episcopalian	No
	Collegiate School	Connecticut Colony	1701	1701	1702	1702 honorary MA 1703 BA	Congregationalist	Yes
	College of New Jersey	Province of New Jersey	1746	1746	1747	1748	Presbyterian, but officially nonsectarian	Yes
	King's College	Province of New York	1754	1754	1754	1758	Church of England, but with a commitment to "religious liberty."	Yes
	College of Philadelphia	Province of Pennsylvania	1740	1755	1755	1757	Church of England, but officially nonsectarian	Yes
	College of Rhode Island	Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations	1764	1764	1765	1765	Baptist, but no religious requirement for admissions	Yes
	Queen's College	Province of New Jersey	1766	1766	1771	1774	Dutch Reformed	No
	Dartmouth College	Province of New Hampshire	1769	1769	1768	1771	Congregationalist	Yes

Other colonial-era colleges and universities

Several other colleges and universities trace their founding to colonial-era academies or schools, but are not considered colonial colleges because they were not formally chartered as colleges with degree-granting powers until after the nation's founding in 1776. These include:

Institution	Colony or state	Founded	Chartered	Religious influence
King William's School	Province of Maryland	1696	1784	Church of England
Kent County Free School	Province of Maryland	1723	1782	Nonsectarian
Bethlehem Female Seminary	Province of Pennsylvania	1742	1863	Moravian Church
Newark Academy	Delaware Colony	1743	1833	Presbyterian, but officially nonsectarian after 1769
Augusta Academy	Colony of Virginia	1749	1782	Presbyterian, but officially non-sectarian
College of Charleston	Province of South Carolina	1770	1785	Church of England
Pittsburgh Academy	Province of Pennsylvania	1770?	1787	Nonsectarian
Little Girls' School	Province of North Carolina	1772	1866	Moravian Church
Dickinson College	Province of Pennsylvania	1773	1783	Presbyterian
Hampden–Sydney College	Colony of Virginia	1775	1783	Presbyterian