<p>What is the big difference between these types of schools? I just read on a Brandeis thread that it is considered a research u, not LAC. I always thought it was a LAC. Will a student get a better education at a LAC over a research u or vice versa? What are the pros and cons?</p>
<p>The simple answer is that LAC’s do not have graduate programs, whereas (research) Universities offer graduate degrees such as M.A.'s and Ph.D’s. Some classes at universities are taught by graduate teaching assistants rather than professors, but since LAC’s do not have graduate students in residence, TA’s are non-existent at LAC’s.</p>
<p>LAC’s tend to have much smaller student bodies. The largest LAC has under 3,000 students. I won’t begin to answer where a student will get a better education because I’m not interested in re-igniting a war of words which has been going on here since this board was formed. You can use the search function to find many previous threads where this has been debated. I have twins who are freshmen in college, one at a LAC and one at a major research university.</p>
<p>You really have to look at each school to see what they offer in terms of facilities, courses, etc., bearing in mind that a student can only take “X” amount of courses over his/her lifetime at the school.</p>
<p>Genenerally class sizes are smaller at LACs, especially in introductory level classes.</p>
<p>I think as this thread progresses, you will see a lot of “typically” and “generally” and “tends to” statements. There are places that are paradigmatic liberal arts colleges, and places that are paradigmatic research universities. But there is sort of a fuzzy line between them. For example, Wesleyan University actually has graduate students and confers graduate degrees, as do many other LACs. However, the number of grad students is typically very small and the focus of the University is definitely on the undergraduate program.</p>
<p>Brandeis may be classified as a research university, but it could still be LAC-like in many ways.</p>
<p>There is no use discussing which offers a “better” education, because the definition of “better” depends entirely on the student. Some students love the LAC atmosphere, others love the different kind of atmosphere provided by large university campuses.</p>
<p>My son had ZERO interest in LACs, and chose a mid-sized university, but my daughter initially thought she might prefer a LAC over a big university. She ended up choosing a big uni because the program she wanted was better at a land-grant institution, but I think she would have done very well socially and academically at the right LAC.</p>
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<p>Brandeis is LAC-like in many ways. The undergraduate student body size is approx 3,300, not much bigger than a large LAC. DD, a Brandeis sophomore, has never had a class taught by a teaching assistant, and I think her classes have all been relatively small. DH and I are LAC alums, and DD’s education at Brandeis is very reminiscent of our experience.</p>
<p>A liberal arts college traditionally is a small school that trains students in general education and focuses on developing thought processes and intellectual ability. It does not offer programs in professional skills, and it does not usually have graduate schools attached that offer professional training (some LACs do have small graduate school programs, but not at the scale of a university). So a research university may have a medical school or a law school attached to it, as well as several undergraduate colleges that make up the university (college of arts, college of science, etc.). </p>
<p>A Liberal Arts college is a standalone institution, and again, it does not offer professional training. You cannot become an accountant, a nurse, a dentist, etc. at an LAC. At my LAC, we could take classes at a nearby university for free, but if we took an accounting class or any other class deemed to be “professional” we would not receive credit for that class. </p>
<p>Liberal arts also refers to a kind of curriculum that emphasizes providing students with a general basis of knowledge that is supposed to be universally applicable to whatever they decide to go on to do. The idea being that if you know how to think, and you know a little about every major discipline, then you can specialize in whatever you want and still be on solid footing. The modern liberal arts are: literature, languages, philosophy, history, mathematics and science. </p>
<p>In classical antiquity, liberal arts denoted the difference between the education of a slave and the education of a free person. A slave only needed technical knowledge, a free person had reason to have a wider education. Classical liberal arts were: astronomy, grammar, dialectic, arithmetic, rhetoric, geometry, and music.</p>
<p>Thanks all for the great info!</p>
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<p>Just to make it clear as mud… The above description of an LAC perfectly fits my alma mater, The College at The U of Chicago which happens to be a research University :D. It had 2500 students when I attended during the Middle Ages.</p>
<p>…However the next sentence “A Liberal Arts college is a standalone institution” does not describe the university of Chicago, which has graduate and professional schools.</p>
<p>And in point of fact, a liberal arts curriculum is not exclusive to stand-alone institutions at all. Many universities have Colleges of Arts & Sciences that have substantially the same programs and curricula as many of those liberal arts colleges that stand alone.</p>
<p>Moreover, “… you know a little about every major discipline” is not subscribed to by some number of institutions that call themselves liberal arts colleges, but do not have required distribution requirements. The nature and content of distribution requirements and other required courses by different institutions that are considered liberal arts colleges is not standardized.</p>
<p>I took nursing 30 yrs ago at a LAC-and most of the LACs my D applied to are universities with graduate degrees</p>
<p>There is an important distinction between a liberal arts curriculum and a Liberal Arts College. A liberal arts curriculum is often offered in a university setting – many universities have a “College of Arts & Sciences” or some such. This is not the same as a Liberal Arts College, which, as other posters have mentioned almost universally have several characteristics:</p>
<p>1) Relatively small size, typically fewer than 3,000 students.</p>
<p>2) Residential - most students are expected to live on campus all 4 years.</p>
<p>3) A focus on undergraduate education. While a very few LACs have small graduate programs, the vast majority of LACs have no graduate programs.</p>
<p>4) The academic program is oriented around one interpretation or another of the liberal arts curriculum.</p>
<p>If, for example, you look at CC’s “Top Liberal Arts Colleges,” you’ll see that the only institutions which call themselves “Universities” are Colgate, Wesleyan and Washington & Lee. Colgate has 2800 undergrads and virtually no graduate students (one source said 12). Wesleyan has 2800 undergrads and 500 graduate students. W&L has 1800 undergrads and 400 in the law school (their only graduate program). By contrast, to pick an example, Rutgers has 42,000 undergraduates and 15,000 graduate students.</p>
<p>The idea of a Liberal Arts College is primarily an American invention. In most other countries higher education is almost exclusively in large universities.</p>
<p>As to which provides the “better” educational experience, I think that depends a lot on the institution in question, and the student’s personality and academic interests.</p>
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<p>Of course, the definition of “liberal arts” also varies. While most people use the term to refer exclusively to humanities (including arts) and social studies, Harvey Mudd College is often called a “liberal arts college”, but has a somewhat different interpretation of [what</a> every student should learn](<a href=“http://www.hmc.edu/academicsclinicresearch/catalogue1/catalogue-10111/academic-programs1/common-core.html]what”>http://www.hmc.edu/academicsclinicresearch/catalogue1/catalogue-10111/academic-programs1/common-core.html).</p>
<p>“2) Residential - most students are expected to live on campus all 4 years.”</p>
<p>This is not universally true. Macalester does not guarantee on-campus housing all four years. Many Barnard dorms are off campus, D2 lived in one of them. D1 lived off-campus her last year at Oberlin. These are just the schools I am familiar with.</p>
<p>While it is not universally true that the vast majority of students live on campus all 4 years at an LAC, even at Macalester 64% of the students live on campus. If we think of Amherst, Pomona, Swarthmore and Williams as the quintessential LACs, they average about 96% of students living on campus. At Barnard it is 90% and at Oberlin it is 88%.
(All data from Princeton Review)</p>
<p>^^^And then there are the universities at which students are expected–or required–to live on campus all four years. Example: Vanderbilt Univ. (although they do make a few exception for seniors, by application; my son made sure he was one of the exceptions.)</p>
<p>As was predicted above, there are no absolute rules to distinguish the two categories.</p>
<p>In our state, one of the public institutions is called a LAC, but includes the word ‘university’ in its name: Truman State University. It is, in fact, far more of a LAC than a university. Probably its only graduate program is education, and that only exists because Truman does not award a standard education degree to undergraduates.</p>
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<p>I actually think there are very clear rules that distinguish between the two, I just don’t think people on CC are very good at articulating them. Being residential really doesn’t have anything to do with being liberal arts. That just has to do with the philosophy and set-up and capacity of the college.</p>
<p>^^^In post #7, your second paragraph stated that liberal arts colleges offered no professional training. Yet Smith College, which I am going to assume you include as a liberal arts college, offers engineering (listed right there on its ‘majors’ page).</p>
<p>Most people familiar with higher education include engineering as a professional program.</p>
<p>I repeat: there are no absolute rules. Except, perhaps, “you’ll know one when you see one”.</p>
<p>“At Barnard it is 90%…”</p>
<p>They are probably counting housing that is owned by the college, but in actuality is not physically on the campus.</p>
<p>"Yet Smith College, which I am going to assume you include as a liberal arts college, offers engineering "</p>
<p>As do several others- eg, Union college, Trinity College, Swarthmore.
And Skidmore College, for one, has an undergrad business major.</p>
<p>"You cannot become an accountant, a nurse, a dentist, etc. at an LAC. "</p>
<p>Not sure but quite possibly you probably can become an accountant , from skidmore, or at least get substantial training towards this end.</p>