Dartmouth College

Hanover, NH
207 Parkhurst Hall, Hanover, NH 03755-3529
603-646-1110

Dartmouth College is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. Founded in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is the ninth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded as a school to educate Native Americans in Christian theology and the English way of life, Dartmouth primarily provides undergraduate instruction in the liberal arts, with graduate programs in business, engineering, medicine, and law. It is also home to the Dartmouth–Hitchcock Medical Center, one of the largest health care facilities in northern New England. With a student enrollment of about 6,400, Dartmouth is the smallest university in the Ivy League.

Dartmouth's 275-acre (111 ha) main campus is in the rural Upper Valley region of New Hampshire. The university functions on a quarter system, operating year-round on four ten-week academic terms. Dartmouth is known for its undergraduate focus on the liberal arts, but is also home to competitive graduate programs in business, engineering, medicine, and law.

Dartmouth's sports teams compete in the NCAA Division I Ivy League. The university has produced many prominent alumni, including 13 Nobel laureates, 25 Rhodes Scholars, and 10 Marshall Scholars. As of 2019, there are about 40 MacArthur Fellowships awarded to Dartmouth alumni.

Dartmouth was founded by Eleazar Wheelock, a Congregational minister from Columbia, Connecticut, who had previously sought to establish a school to train Native Americans as Christian missionaries. Wheelock's ostensible inspiration for such an establishment resulted from his relationship with Mohegan Indian Samson Occom. Occom became an ordained minister after studying under Wheelock from 1743 to 1747, and later moved to Long Island to preach to the Montauks. Wheelock founded Moor's Indian Charity School in 1755.

Wheelock intended Moor's Charity School to be an Indian college, "wherein Youth of the said Tribe should be instructed in all the Learning which Englishmen are usually taught at the College of Cambridge in New England." However, the school was soon turned into a primarily white institution, Moor's Indian Charity School.

In 1764, Wheelock's students raised funds for the construction of a new building, and Wheelock relocated the school to Hanover, in the Province of New Hampshire. The move from Connecticut followed a lengthy and sometimes frustrating search for financial support from the Moravian Church.

The school's nine-story Main Building was completed in 1770. That building's cornerstone lists the names of Wheelock and eight men who served as trustees during the school's first years: Occom, John Wentworth, Benning Wentworth, Mark Hunkins, Samuel Hopkins, Jedidiah Morse, David Sewall, and James Manning. By 1771, the school had attracted its first students, a group of Native Americans from the Mohegan and Narragansett tribes who traveled from Connecticut to Hanover to receive Wheelock's instruction.

In 1772, Wheelock published A Plan for the Further Education of Youth of the Indian Tribes in New England. That same year, Moor's Indian Charity School received a large donation of books from the estate of Harvard College's first president, Henry Dunster.

By 1773, Wheelock's school had been renamed Dartmouth College in honor of William Legge, 2nd Earl of Dartmouth, a benefactor of the school.

In 1774, the first class of four students graduated from Dartmouth. That same year, Dartmouth's first buildings other than the Main Building were constructed: a chapel, a library, and two dormitories.

The American Revolution began in 1775, and Dartmouth played a small role in that conflict. One of Dartmouth's earliest students, Samuel Hopkins, was a chaplain in the Continental Army.

After the Revolution, many of Dartmouth's earliest students left the school to join the new United States military. In 1779, the college awarded its first degrees to three students: two in divinity and one in arts.

During the 19th century, Dartmouth grew steadily. In 1819, the college moved from Hanover to its current location on a rural piece of property known as the Green.

In 1866, Dartmouth College was the first Ivy League school to accept African American students.

In the early 20th century, Dartmouth added several new graduate programs, including programs in medicine, engineering, and business.

Dartmouth's sports teams compete in the NCAA Division I Ivy League. The college has produced many prominent alumni, including 13 Nobel laureates, 25 Rhodes Scholars, and 10 Marshall Scholars.



Quick Facts

Enrollment: 6292

Acceptance Rate: 9.22%

Type: Private not-for-profit, 4-year or above

Main Website: https://www.dartmouth.edu/

Financial Aid: https://admissions.dartmouth.edu/afford/apply-financial-aid

Annual Costs

Total Cost In-State On-Campus: $79525

Total Cost Out-State On-Campus: $79525

Return on Investment Rating

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The estimated cost for four years as an undergraduate at Dartmouth College is $271220.78. This includes the average cost of attendance for four years plus the interest on the average loan over a ten year repayment minus the average of grants and scholarships per student.

We then contrast this figure with average early-career and mid-career average incomes of graduates of four year programs at Dartmouth College. For graduates of Dartmouth College, we saw an average early-career income of $77600.00 and mid-career income of $149800.00. We then ranked the school's value based on how many years of mid-career income it takes to repay the educational costs.