"Why Go to College? An Address" is an essay written in support of the necessity of education for American women, written in the 19th century. The author of the essay, Alice Freeman Palmer, was an American educator and a co-founder and president of the Association of Collegiate Alumnae, which later became the American Association of University Women. In her essays, she called for women to attain a college education so that if they needed to support themselves, they would have the necessary skills to do so.