The Difficult Path to Women’s Admission to University Studies

In the 19th century, women were largely excluded from higher education. Switzerland took a leading role in Europe in breaking down these barriers. In the 1860s and 1870s, women were admitted to study and take exams in Zurich, Bern, Geneva, Lausanne, and Neuchâtel. In Basel, regular access remained initially barred to them. Starting in 1890, women were admitted to study on a trial basis, though this was limited to those who had completed their secondary education in Basel.

Unlike in many other European countries, women and men studied together in Switzerland from the moment women were admitted. Swiss universities quickly attracted ambitious young women from wealthy families across Europe. They came to study mathematics, medicine, natural sciences, psychology, or law.

By 1900, nearly all female students at Swiss universities were foreign nationals, and up to 80 percent came from the former Russian Empire. In 1906, a quarter of all female university graduates worldwide earned their degrees in Switzerland. They came to a country with a well-developed higher education system that offered women new opportunities.

The decision to study in Switzerland, however, was not an easy one. In most cases, women in European countries were not allowed to travel without the permission of their father or husband. This led to many hasty marriages or marriages of convenience. Furthermore, at a time when women were still expected to marry and bear children, female students faced a social stigma.

Yet while foreign women viewed Switzerland as a gateway to higher education, the universities remained surprisingly empty of Swiss women. Although the universities formally declared gender equality, they admitted only local young men. One of the admission requirements was attendance at a gymnasium, which was denied to women. Girls’ schools in Switzerland did not offer the same curriculum. To gain admission to university and circumvent the restrictions, they had to attend expensive private courses and take entrance exams.

A genuine shift in attitudes took place after World War I, when the war forced women into the workforce. Gradually, Swiss universities lifted their admission restrictions. In the meantime, the war had halted the influx of Russian female students.

In 1922, the first girls’ high schools were opened in Geneva, which awarded high school diplomas and enabled girls to apply to universities. In 1924, the Swiss Association of Female Academics (SVA) was founded in Bern to defend the rights of female university graduates.

Around 1930, official statistics showed that most educated women in Switzerland chose careers in education or medicine, either as doctors, pharmacists, or dentists. NULL chose to become engineers. The legal profession also remained largely closed to them.

Anna Tumarkin, born in what is now Belarus, goes down in history as the world’s first female professor with full academic rights at a coeducational university and as the first regular private lecturer in Switzerland. She received her teaching license (venia docendi in philosophy) in 1898 at the University of Bern at the age of just 23.

Gender Distribution of Students and Professors

In today’s gender distribution of students at Swiss universities, there is a significant difference between general universities on the one hand and technical universities, as well as the University of St. Gallen, which specializes in economics, on the other. While the proportion of women at general universities rose from 30–50% to approximately 60% between 1980 and 2024, this proportion at technical universities and the University of St. Gallen, which specializes in economics, has developed at a significantly lower level: 10–13% in 1980 to 30–35% in 2024, which is on average 15–20 percentage points lower than at general universities. Within the universities, the proportion of women was significantly higher at institutions in French-speaking Switzerland than in German-speaking Switzerland, but by 2024, the proportions of female students at these universities had converged.

The proportion of women among professors is significantly lower. While it ranged between zero and five percent in 1980, it rose to 30–35% at general universities by 2024; at the two technical universities, it is approximately 5 percentage points lower. The proportion of female professors at the University of St. Gallen, which specialises in economy, developed roughly in parallel with the technical universities between 1980 and 2010, but then grew much more rapidly after 2010, ultimately reaching the highest level in 2024 alongside the University of Geneva.

History of Swiss Universities

Before the year 1000, higher education in Switzerland consisted of monastery schools; from the late 12th and 13th centuries onward, most cities had Latin schools (gymnasiums). In the Middle Ages, students from what is now Switzerland primarily attended the universities of Vienna, Heidelberg, Paris, and Orléans, as well as those in Italy. The founding of the University of Basel in 1460 followed the European trend, which corresponded to the German model with four faculties.

The Reformation gave rise to a new type of higher education institution in the Reformed cantons for the training of theological professionals: the “Hohen Schulen” (academies) in Zurich (1525), Bern (1528), Lausanne (1537), and Geneva (1559). All were structured as theological faculties with a focus on ancient languages. With the development of early modern sciences, new disciplines such as law and mathematics were added. However, the Hohen Schulen did not evolve into institutions with multiple faculties.

The European Enlightenment influenced university education and higher vocational education in Switzerland. Although several attempts to establish a national university failed, they shaped the development of universities for at least half a century before the more modest variant of a national technical university—the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich—was founded in 1855 (Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule = ETH). The primary catalyst for the founding of ETH and the EPFL’s predecessor, the “École Spéciale de Lausanne,” was the need for engineers in road, railway, and bridge construction (civil engineers, surveyors, cartographers), as well as architects, mechanical engineers and specialists in industrial chemistry and forestry. These disciplines were supplemented by the foundational subjects of mathematics, natural sciences, and several general education subjects in literature and political economy.

With the Mediation Act of 1803, educational authority was returned to the cantons. Bern subsequently elevated the High School to an academy in 1805, which developed into a university with four faculties, although academic freedom and the right to award doctorates were still lacking. However, the Academy was removed from ecclesiastical supervision, placed under the direction of an authority known as the Kuratel, and integrated into the state education system.

At the beginning of the Regeneration (1830–1848), the universities founded in the cantons of Zurich and Bern followed the model of the German reform university. As the pinnacle of the regenerated cantonal school system, Zurich established the University of Zurich in 1833 with guaranteed academic and research freedom, the right to award doctorates, and support for young scholars. In 1834, the University of Bern also opened its doors.

Swiss Universities Today

Today’s Swiss education system includes various institutions of higher education at the tertiary level: universities (UH), universities of applied sciences (FH), and universities of teacher education (PH). The term “universities” refers to the cantonal universities and the two federally funded Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology (ETHZ and EPFL). In addition, there are a number of other higher education institutions, such as IHEID and the Swiss Distance Learning University. These have not been included on this map.

72% of students at Swiss higher education institutions report working part-time alongside their studies; of these, 61% work a maximum of 40% of full-time hours. The average time spent on studies during a typical semester week is 33.3 hours. 50% of financial resources come from the family, 42% from employment, and 4% from scholarships/loans. The average age of all students is 26 (Key Figures 2024).

The University of Zurich is the largest university in Switzerland in terms of the number of students and professors, with approximately 29,400 students and about 750 professors (Key figures 2024).