[7] All resident students are required to work 10 hours per week, but the program is optional for commuters.

Within two years (1857), the school was chartered as "Blackburn Theological Seminary",[4] and the first unit of University Hall was erected.

[4] The first woman attended Blackburn in 1864, thereby sparking the movement of admitting female students.

Starting in 1916, students could receive a Certificate of Associates of Arts, and in 1917, the last Blackburn class graduated from the four-year institution.

Between 1922 and 1924, a large project had been developed and the Construction of the central heating plant occurred between 1922 and 1924, along with the first (and oldest) residential building, Stoddard Hall.

[4] The institution also discarded the Pullman cars as temporary housing units and discontinued the original Blackburn Academy.

1983 marked the establishment of the Computer Center in Hudson Hall, which provided student access to a VAX 11/750 and some eighteen microcomputers.

2008 marked the completion of the construction of the Marvin and Ingrid Mahan Science Laboratory, which is one of the first[which?]

LEED rated buildings in central Illinois and houses state-of-the-art[citation needed] laboratories for biology, chemistry, biochemistry, faculty offices, and a large enclosed atrium.

In 2019, Blackburn College announced and began the construction of an 8-acre solar farm, which was finished in August 2019.

[4] The campus itself lies on 80 acres of land in Carlinville, Illinois, a small, rural community about an hour north of downtown St. Louis.

In 2021, Blackburn College removed standardized tests from the application process and joined the CommonApp network.

[18] The Work Program was first instituted at Blackburn College in 1913 by William M. Hudson as a means to provide access to higher education to individuals with the academic ability but who lacked financial stability.

This "Self-Help Plan", as it was first called, required students to participate in 3 hours a day of manual labor in exchange for the payment of their tuition.

[23] In January 2009, the college announced that it would stop fielding a football team after the 2008–2009 school year.