This month, nearly 300,000 college students will file back into classrooms across Atlanta. The metro area is home to more than 70 colleges and universities, from smaller schools like Spelman College, with 2,700 undergraduates, to sprawling ones like Georgia State University, which last spring conferred degrees on more than 10,000 students. Here are a few fun facts about Atlanta’s collegiate life:
8113
The year slated for the opening of “The Crypt of Civilization,” a time capsule buried under Oglethorpe University in 1935. It was devised by then college president Dr. Thornwell Jacobs, who intended to perform his generation’s “archeological duty” by giving future scholars an accurate scientific archive of the era.
177
Approximate age of Dooley, the famed skeleton mascot of Emory University, who was first purchased in 1849 as a research specimen for the biology department (the bones are long lost, but the legend lives on).
20
Minimum number of movies with scenes filmed at Agnes Scott College, including Fried Green Tomatoes and The Blind Side.
6
Number of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) located in metro Atlanta, the most of any American city.
1896
Year W.E.B. DuBois joined the faculty of Atlanta University, which launched in 1865 to educate newly liberated Black Georgians (the school consolidated with Clark College to become Clark Atlanta University in 1988).
This article appears in our August 2026 issue.
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Rachel Garbus
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