Whittier College
liberal arts college in Whittier, California
Whittier College is a private liberal arts college in Whittier, California, United States. Founded by Quakers in 1887, it is a federally-designated Hispanic-Serving Institution. As of fall 2025, it had 797 undergraduate and graduate students. Whittier athletic teams compete in NCAA Division III.
History
Whittier College was founded in 1887 by members of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) and named after the poet and abolitionist John Greenleaf Whittier. Although the institution no longer has a formal Quaker affiliation, it maintains a tradition of emphasizing social responsibility and community engagement.
Academics
Whittier College is a four-year liberal arts institution. The school enrolls around 800 undergraduates and has just over 100 full-time faculty members. It offers over 30 majors and 30 minors in 23 disciplines. Whittier offers one graduate degree – a master's degree in education. Its most popular undergraduate majors, based on 2021 graduates, were
Business Administration and Management (62)
Exercise Science and Kinesiology (52)
Biology/Biological Sciences (40)
Psychology (38)
Social Sciences (29)
English Language and Literature (24)
Whittier Law School
Whittier Law School was located on a satellite campus in Costa Mesa, California.
The public source identifies “Whittier College” as liberal arts college in Whittier, California. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Whittier, College and liberal.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7996868. VIAF identifies the subject as 127742208. The Library of Congress control number is n79139389. Authority coordinates are 33.978, -118.030. 3 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1887, 2025 and 2021.
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This entry incorporates text from “Whittier College” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.