Introduction: Although higher education has been available in the UK for a long time, women did not have the privilege of receiving an equal education as men. Brown (2011C) finds that 70% of men were educated compared to only 55% of women in 1851. Nowadays, the situation seems inconsistent with the past as in 2010-2011 there is 10% in more women enter universities than men. . Furthermore, it appears that the number of female students is almost double that of male students. (Ratcliffe,2013). This essay aims to provide a chronology of the key events that led to women's equality in higher education and when degrees were awarded to women at Oxford and Cambridge. History and Statistics According to research shown by Brown (2011C), the population the number of women was gradually increasing from 1,036 per 1,000 males in 1821 to 1,054 per 1,000 males in 1871. This meant that there would be unmarried women who would have to support themselves. Women had very limited career choices and most of them relied on the role of housekeeper to earn a living. Gillard (2011) notes that children received a similar education to boys before the introduction of the Education Act of 1870, which emphasized a curriculum in which girls should be taught domestic skills. Education for women in the early Victorian era was inadequate and inconsistent as girls were educated by untrained private governesses. (Gillard, 2011) The Beginning of the Movement Jones (2012) stated that the Ladies of Langham Place Group believed that education for middle class women was a difficulty as they were taught by untrained governesses. The Langham Place Group consisted of Emily Davies, Elizabeth Garrett and Millicent Garrett and other women. This group analyzed various... half of the paper... it's important. To work within the word limit, I also had to choose events that I thought were important. I had to narrow down the events I wanted to include in my essay and the significant people who helped bring about the change. I also couldn't discuss other universities that restricted the admission of women. In conclusion, equality in higher education for women has not been achieved quickly and easily. It was the hard work of many women. It also brought about a change in people's mentality. Women's qualifications were recognized by Cambridge in 1948, over one hundred years after the movement began in 1843. As seen in the research conducted in this essay, in the past people were prejudiced against women achieving higher education. Oxford and Cambridge, being the best universities in the country, failed to understand the importance of educating women and men equally until the middle of 1900.