Hillsdale College

Hillsdale College was founded in 1844 as Michigan Central College in Spring Arbor, Michigan. It was established by Freewill Baptists, and the college states that it has been officially non-denominational since its inception.⁠[1]

On December 4, 1844, Michigan Central College began classes near Spring Arbor with five students; in 1845 the school moved to a site on M-60.⁠[2]

In 1850 the State of Michigan granted the school its charter, which the college describes as the first in the United States to prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender, race, or religion. In 1851 Elizabeth Camp earned a bachelor of science degree, becoming the school’s first graduate and the first woman in Michigan to receive a college degree.⁠[3]

The college states that it was the second college in the nation to grant four-year liberal arts degrees to women.⁠[1]

The school moved to Hillsdale in 1853, was chartered by the state legislature in 1855 and took the name Hillsdale College under an independent board of trustees. The Michigan state historical marker identifies it as the first college in Michigan to grant degrees to women.⁠[4]

The Articles of Association adopted in 1855 stated that the institution would educate “all persons who wish, irrespective of nation, color, or sex.”⁠[3]

The college launched Imprimis, a free monthly speech digest, in 1972 with a few thousand subscribers; by April 2022 it had more than 6.3 million subscribers.⁠[5]

Larry P. Arnn has led Hillsdale College as president since May 2000. He received a B.A. from Arkansas State University in 1974 and an M.A. (1976) and Ph.D. (1985) in government from Claremont Graduate School, and served as president of the Claremont Institute from 1985 to 2000.⁠[6]

The college launched the Allan P. Kirby, Jr. Center for Constitutional Studies and Citizenship (the Kirby Center) in Washington in 2008, initially in temporary quarters. On December 3, 2010, the center held the grand opening of its new home on Capitol Hill, a renovated 16,000-square-foot historic building dating from 1892 that houses internships, fellowships and lecture programs.⁠[7]

On September 15, 2010, the board of trustees established the Hillsdale College Graduate School of Statesmanship, renamed the Van Andel Graduate School of Statesmanship in October 2013; it offers the M.A. and Ph.D. in politics. The first cohort began studies in 2012, with the first M.A. graduates in 2014 and the first Ph.D. graduates in 2018.⁠[8]

In September 2011 the college launched its first online course, “Introduction to the Constitution.” By April 2015 it offered 11 free online courses, which had passed 1 million enrollments from more than 710,000 unique students.⁠[9]

In May 2018 Patrick Flannery, the college’s vice president of finance and treasurer, said it had more than $1 billion in assets and about $100 million in liabilities, with an endowment of roughly $548 million.⁠[10]

At the end of the fiscal year on June 30, 2021, the endowment was valued at $906 million; in the 2020–21 fiscal year the college received $231,617,535 from 370,295 donors.⁠[11]

The college said its endowment investments totaled more than $900 million as of June 2024. In the 2025 ForbesForbesForbes is an American business media brand that began with Forbes magazine, founded by B.C. Forbes in 1917. It is known for rankings such as the Forbes 400, the World’s Billionaires list and 30 Under 30, and operates Forbes.com, ForbesLive events and licensed editions in 81 countries. Since 2014 a majority stake has been held by the Hong Kong investment group Integrated Whale Media; a 2021 plan to list on the New York Stock Exchange through a special purpose acquisition company was terminated in 2022. It is headquartered in Jersey City, New Jersey.Open the full entry college financial rankings it placed third among the 20 colleges that received an A+ grade.⁠[12]

Presidents of the college between 1844 and 1999 were Daniel McBride Graham (1844–48 and again 1871–74), Edmund Burke Fairfield (1848–69), James Calder (1869–71), DeWitt Clinton Durgin (1874–84), George F. Mosher (1886–1901), Joseph William Mauck (1902–22), William Gear Spencer (1922–32), Willfred Otto Mauck (1933–42), Harvey L. Turner (1942–52), J. Donald Phillips (1952–71) and George Roche (1971–99).⁠[13]

Hillsdale announced that as of the 1984 school year it would withdraw from all forms of federal assistance, and it launched national private fundraising to replace government aid. In 2007 the college also stopped accepting funds from the State of Michigan.⁠[14]

The state funds it gave up included the Michigan Merit Award, the Michigan Promise scholarship and the Michigan Competitive Scholarship/Michigan Tuition Grant program. In the previous year about 350 of the college’s roughly 1,300 students had received about $670,000 from these programs; the college replaced the state money students had been scheduled to receive with privately raised funds.⁠[15]

In 2010 the college stated that it operates independently of both federal and state taxpayer support, including indirect aid in the form of student grants and loans.⁠[7]

In its profile updated in 2026, the college describes itself as an independent, coeducational, residential classical liberal arts college accredited by the Higher Learning Commission. It lists 1,565 undergraduates, 159 graduate students and 171 full-time faculty, a student-faculty ratio of 8:1, and a 400-acre campus with 104 buildings. Degrees include the B.A. and B.S., an M.A. in classical education from the Graduate School of Education, the M.A. and Ph.D. in politics from the Van Andel Graduate School of Statesmanship, and an M.A. in government from the Van Andel Graduate School of Government. For fall 2025 it admitted 19% of first-time, first-year applicants. The college also runs Hillsdale Academy, a K-12 private school, and the Barney Charter School Initiative.⁠[16]

The college’s Washington, D.C., campus at 227 Massachusetts Avenue NE on Capitol Hill houses the Steve and Amy Van Andel Graduate School of Government, whose 36-credit-hour program holds classes in the evenings or on Saturdays, along with programs such as the James Madison Fellowship and the Washington-Hillsdale Internship Program. The college is licensed to operate in the District of Columbia by the D.C. Higher Education Licensure Commission.⁠[17]

Erik PrinceErik PrinceErik Prince (Erik D. Prince, born 1969) is an American entrepreneur, private investor and former U.S. Navy SEAL officer. He founded Blackwater USA in 1997 and bought Presidential Airways in 2003, sold both businesses in 2010, and later founded the private equity firm Frontier Resource Group.Open the full entry briefly attended the U.S. Naval Academy before transferring to Hillsdale College, where he majored in economics with a minor in political science and graduated in 1992.⁠[18]