Jewish University Students - 1937

I'm sad to say that my 1937 Jewish counterparts fell behind the general population in the college attendance gender gap - only 33% of college students were women, verse %42 of the broader population. At least someone was counting though!

The B'nai Brith Hillel Foundation (that's what it was) commissioned a study of the American and Canadian Jewish student community in 1935, and counted 105,000 "Jews and Jewesses" in college, comprising 9% of the entire student community.

The report, titled The Jewish Student in America, goes into detail on where Jews are studying (overrepresented in Massachusetts, underrepresented in New York City), what they're studying (in professional school, largely dentistry, law, and pharmacy), and what Jewish organizations serve them.

For example, it finds that students are well served by social organizations like Jewish fraternities and sororities (1/6th of students belong to a social organization), likely because at the time, "Practically all national social fraternities and sororities of non-Jewish origin [did] not admit Jews as members." on the other hand, "facilities for religious and cultural activity among Jewish students are extremely defective," and the report recommends urgent work in expanding religious and cultural resources.