Swarthmore, one of the nation's finest institutions of higher learning, is a college like no other. Private, yet open to all regardless of financial need. American, yet decidedly global in outlook and diversity, drawing students from around the world and all 50 states. Small, yet with the financial strength to offer students and faculty generous resources to push their own and the world's understanding of disciplines from Arabic to plasma physics, from microbiology to dance, from engineering to art history.



Swarthmore celebrates the life of the mind. Since its founding in 1864, Swarthmore has given students of uncommon intellectual ability the knowledge, insight, skills, and experience to become leaders for the common good. And they do. Swarthmoreans are CEO patent-holders who bring technology to underserved markets, investment bankers looking for alternative forms of energy, lawyers who become college presidents, doctors who serve in Congress, winners of the Nobel Prize.  A Swarthmorean founded the first liberal arts college in Ghana. Another led the team that developed the Hubble Space Telescope. Swarthmoreans invented hypertext and helped women win the right to vote.