I’ve answered similar questions before – this one, I think, gets at a lot of what you’re asking – but I want to focus on something you mention in your last line: the notion of priorities. The early American colleges, known collectively as the Colonial Colleges, were started to educate men to become educated men. If that feels tautological, it was. And part of the reason is tied up with whose priorities drove the creation of higher education in the colonies.

One of the main priorities of early colonists was to replicate, to a certain degree, familiar touchstones from European higher education. This included creating spaces for the elite to speak Greek to each other. Or, more precisely, spaces where they could be educated together, replicating a society of educated gentlemen doing what learned men did. And part of that was learning Greek – or more commonly Latin as that was often the language of instruction – and discussing the ideas offered by those who wrote in Greek and Latin. A concurrent priority was a sheen of exclusivity embodied by the men who matriculated at and eventually graduated from the Colleges. The first commencement at Harvard in 1642 wasn’t technically a graduation as the College had no royal charter for awarding degrees, but the men in positions of power in Massachusetts supported it – so it had gravitas. The only professor (more commonly known as tutors) was the college president, Henry Dunster. He was a Cambridge graduate and carried over a number of the structures he experienced while there, including the nature of what was taught.

While there were various perspectives on what should be formally taught and what could be learned through lived experiences, mentoring, or apprenticeship, the most common attitude was that being smart was sufficient for success. In other words, the founders of the Colonial Colleges, teaching staff, men who sent their sons, and students believed learning things that smart men knew made one smart enough to be a leader, politician, lawyer, clergy member, etc. Students would and could go on to study religion or the law in more depth, in a way that was similar to a master’s program, but it wasn’t necessarily to become a lawyer, doctor, or politician as it is in the modern era. It was more like adding an extra dose of smart on top of their smartness. Though Harvard did fundraise and organize around a claim that the goal was preparing clergy members, it was never a seminary but instead had a liberal arts focus – languages, some math, some science, rhetoric. Nor was it about practical knowledge or preparation for a career. Harvard graduates were treated as, and expected to act like, godly gentlemen and welcomed in society and power. To put it another way, the Colonial Colleges student bodies grew larger because more young men were willing and able to pay tuition in exchange for becoming educated, not because there was a need for more clergy members. (It’s worth stating that there was a relationship between the young men deemed worthy of a gentlemen’s education and the colleges’ financial situation. When a college’s finances were more precarious, they were more likely the hire any man who could pay tuition. When they were more stable, they would limit admission to men deemed worthy of the college's name and reputation.

Most of the other colonial colleges had similar histories; the curriculum was shaped by the first president, who was often the first tutor or responsible for hiring and training the early tutors. The student body was mostly local men and boys looking to become members of – or maintain their status as – the gentlemen, or learned, class. Later, as a way to ensure the sons of gentlemen were assured their place at the Colleges for gentlemen, many of the colleges would establish feeder schools (often known as Latin schools) that prepared sons to pass the admission exams at the Colonial College.

Given all of that, the tutors' primary qualification was their membership in the gentlemen class. Some were former tutors or students at Oxford or Cambridge, who came to the states with the goal of working as a tutor. Low pay and bad working conditions, though, meant a very high turnover rate. As the Colleges pool of alumni expanded, college graduates would often serve as tutors. Teaching the younger sons, though, of the men who wanted to send their sons to a Colonial College could be lucrative, especially in communities that did not have a feeder school. It wouldn't be until the late 1800s that the modern professorship would take shape.