Cornell University has 21,600 students in 2015, about twice as many as it did in 1950. Half of them are women, compared with one-fifth back then. And more than one-third of today's Cornellians are black, Hispanic, or Asian. In 1950, all of the university's minority students probably could have fit into a single lecture hall.

Cornell is also a lot richer now. In the late 1940s, it was struggling to balance the budget and recovering from a severe case of growing pains. Enrollment increased 40 percent between June and October 1946. Many freshmen lived in poorly insulated temporary...