Washington, D.C

Education

Washington, D.C., has a well-educated population—more than 25 percent of the population 25-years-old and over have at least an undergraduate college education. In the fall of 1996 the District of Columbia Public School System enrolled 78,648 students in grades K through 12; 3.9 percent were white, and 96.1 percent belonged to minorities. The school system operated 184 schools with 5,288 teachers; pupil-teacher ratio stood at 14.9 to one, and staff totaled 9,318.

Washington, D.C., is home to a number of well-known colleges and universities, including Georgetown University, the country's oldest Roman Catholic university, renowned for its school of international affairs and other departments; Howard University, which has a distinguished tradition as an educational institution for African Americans; Gallaudet, the world's only liberal arts college for the deaf and hearing impaired; and Johns Hopkins University, known for academic excellence in medicine and other fields.

Other well-known colleges and universities in the Washington, D.C., area include American University, George Washington University, Catholic University, Mount Vernon and Trinity colleges, and the University of the District of Columbia. The capital is also home to a number of licensed technical and trade schools. Nearby Maryland is home to the U.S. Naval Academy and the unique St. John's College, the "Great Books School," which offers a rigorous and unorthodox curriculum of Greek and Latin classics studied in their original languages, as well as great works from later eras.