How did educational opportunities for middle- and upper-class women?

Answer 1

It depends on which time you are asking about. In the days of Abigail Adams (President John Adams' wife), the idea of a woman attending college was unheard of. When Lucy Stone did finally attend, she had to overcome her father's objections to a woman studying; she graduated from Oberlin College with honor, but the college refused to allow her to read the commencement speech because it was believed back then (1847) that women should not speak in the public sphere.

Eventually, women were allowed to attend and participate in college, but the cultural expectation was that they would only study teaching or nursing, and many were encouraged to attend a secretarial school. A few women of the late 1800s challenged those attitudes and studied to become lawyers (for example Belva Lockwood, 1873) or doctors (Elizabeth Blackwell, 1849), but they were in the minority.

Compare that to modern times, where millions of women study in universities all over the United States, Canada, and most other countries, entering a wide range of professions, including law, medicine, the arts, the sciences, media, and business management. So, a case can certainly be made that educational opportunities have changed for the better for the majority of women.