Colonial colleges

The colonial colleges are nine institutions of higher education chartered in the American Colonies before the American Revolution (1775–1783). These nine have long been considered together, notably in the survey of their origins in the 1907 The Cambridge History of English and American Literature. Although today most of these institutions refer to themselves as "universities", they are called "colonial colleges" partly because, at the time of the revolution, only Penn called itself a "university". Each had assumed the power to grant academic degrees, a power in Europe only held by universities; several were offering some graduate instruction. (See college for more on American usage of that word.)
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