Thomas Jefferson founded the University of Virginia in 1819. He planned the curriculum, recruited the first faculty, and designed the academical village. He wished the publicly-supported school to have a national character and stature. The University was an innovation because it was dedicated to educating leaders in practical affairs and public service rather than for the professions in the classroom and pulpit exclusively. It was the first nonsectarian university in the United States and the first to use the elective course system.
The University opened for classes in 1825 with a faculty of eight and a student body numbering sixty-eight. Jefferson took great pains to recruit the most highly qualified faculty, five of whom were found in England and three in the United States. Instruction was offered in ancient languages, modern languages, mathematics, moral philosophy, natural philosophy, chemistry, law, and medicine. The students came from the American South and West and were predominantly not Virginians.
Jefferson opposed the granting of degrees on the grounds that they were "artificial embellishments." In 1824, however, the Board of Visitors authorized granting the master of arts degree. The M.D. degree was awarded to the first graduates of the School of Medicine in 1828, and the LL.B. was first awarded for law school graduates in 1842. The bachelor's degree was awarded beginning in 1849, but became the standard undergraduate degree and a prerequisite for the master's degree in 1899, bringing the University into conformity with other institutions of higher learning. The Ph.D. has been awarded since 1883.
Still small for a state institution, the University of Virginia enrolls some 18,000 on-Grounds students. About 65 percent of the undergraduate student body come from Virginia, two-thirds of the student body are undergraduates, and there are approximately equal numbers of men and women. Through the ten schools, the University offers the bachelor's degree in forty-six fields and programs, the educational specialist in six, the first professional in two, and the doctorate in fifty-four.