Past and Present

While I was researching Ohio Universities history there were so many things that I came across that I found very interesting.  Knowing that Ohio University was founded in 1804, it surprised me to discover that it was not actually opened until 1808.  Even though it was not opened for four years after it was founded the university only had 3 students.  This number really stood out to me, because it showed how precious higher education was at the time.  Even with education being scarce what was even more intriguing to me was the number of students enrolled post wars that our country engaged in.  It seemed that war had a correlated with the number of students that attended Ohio University.  It was not until after the Civl War that OU had 145 graduates.  From then on the population of the university grew and eventually by 1920, after World War I, the population had reached 1,072 students.  It was not until after World War II that the university started to approach the present size that it is.  Currently Ohio University has approximately 20,000 students from all over the United States as well as other areas of the world.  While there are many aspects that contribute to the enrollment number of a college, I feel that the history and growth at this college was certainly affected by the history of our country.