Beloit College is a liberal arts college in Beloit, Wisconsin, USA. It is a member of the Associated Colleges of the Midwest, and has an enrollment of roughly 1,300 undergraduate students. Beloit is the oldest continuously operated college in Wisconsin, and has the oldest building of any college northwest of Chicago in continuous academic use. Beloit has gained national attention after its inclusion in Loren Pope's book, 40 Colleges That Change Lives, which identifies schools having two essential elements: "A familial sense of communal enterprise that gets students heavily involved in cooperative rather than competitive learning, and a faculty of scholars devoted to helping young people develop their powers, mentors who often become their valued friends". Beloit College was founded by the group Friends for Education, which was started by seven pioneers from New England who, soon after their arrival in Wisconsin Territory, agreed that a college needed to be established. The group raised funds for a college in their new town and convinced the territorial legislature to enact the charter for Beloit College on February 2, 1846.