sentences:  As admissions to colleges and universities grew increasingly competitive throughout the 1990s and 2000s, Henry S. Bienen's tenure oversaw the increase in the number and quality of undergraduate applicants, continued expansion of the facilities and faculty, as well as renewed athletic competitiveness.In 1850, Chicago was only a 17-year-old city of 28,000 inhabitants that was increasingly becoming the center of trade for both steamships and railroads.The political and cultural environment of the mid-nineteenth century resulted in individual states granting charters to hundreds of small colleges rather than a few centralized national institutions as was typical in European countries.