Do you think you get a significantly better education at a top 20 LAC

I read the QS methodology and do not see it mentioned that the survey was only for universities.

@gyrase777 you can start with the title, then if still not convinced, look through the list and see if any liberal arts colleges were considered at all.

“University” has a definition and it excludes “liberal arts college”.

Forbes is one that says it considers “output” more than “input” and ranks both universities and liberal arts colleges: https://www.forbes.com/top-colleges/list/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/cartercoudriet/2017/08/02/top-colleges-2017-the-methodology

Hard to say as my kids aren’t at top 20 schools. Eldest’s LAC is at 23, I believe. I know that she’s happy and challenged. I would say that she’s had a lot more opportunity and attention than her friends at top 20 schools. She’s more of an intellectual risk taker than those particular kids so she’s absolutely getting a much broader education. straight quality of classroom though? I don’t know. Middle child was just accepted into a few schools in that same range… more top 30 than 20. I’m confident he’ll get a good education.

Something to consider when looking at the alumni earning stats is whether or not they have a business school. Schools that attract wealthy students and have big business schools graduate some very high earners but I’m not sure how that is representative or everyone. I don’t know that a Pomona English major is really going to earn THAT much more than an English major at Sarah Lawrence.

Business would not necessarily be part of an LAC in the truest sense of the word. Business is more of a professional degree like engineering. There are some colleges that have liberal arts and prepro majors and can be found.

The point is that you need some measure of outcomes for the OP’s question to be answered in a scientific manner. The QS employability ranking was an example of such an outcome-based ranking. Your quibble that the QS ranking is that of universities rather than LACs missed the larger point I was making, which is that you need some kind of scientific methodology that can be scrutinized and analyzed - as opposed to merely posting a query on an anonymous message board. My citing the QS employability ranking was not so much to tout it as the ultimate authority on the best universities for employability but as a way of thinking about the issue. If an outcome based ranking for LACs is available, then the OP should probably look at that. See what methodology it uses; if reasonable, that would be a good starting point for investigation.

Well, technically there’s no such thing as an English major at Sarah Lawrence (no majors, individualized, interdisciplinary degree for all students) – but for earning capacity, SLC students might have all sorts of internship opportunities with NYC publishing houses that would be impractical for Pomona students. On the other hand, SLC probably draws a lot more artsy/creative types who may also have more flexible views when it come to career and employment goals. So it really is comparing apples to oranges.

I think it’s a mistake to confound post-graduate earnings with educational quality.

For one thing, the most academically-focused or academically rigorous LACs do a great job of preparing students to pursue Ph.D’s, and PhD candidates don’t get paid much (if they are fortunate enough to be funded), and post-docs often don’t fare a whole lot better. It might make more sense to look at educational outcomes in the sense of which direction students tend to go on graduation, rather than dollar figures for income. Corporate/career? Grad school for law or medicine? Academia? Peace corps or nonprofit?

No one should pursue a PhD if it isn’t funded.

I think this is a really interesting discussion. I want to add that the fact that a school has many part time/vs. full time professors is not necessarily a draw back. Often that means the professors are working in the field with connections and intership opportunities to offer. For some fields, like media, for example, that can be a huge advantage.

@calmom I was assuming posters here could understand the point of measuring one major against itself at any of these colleges but go forth and not get the point lol.

Well my point is that earning outcomes has very little bearing on the academic caliber of any major, given that academia isn’t exactly the highest paying field around. I am sorry if I misinterpreted the phrase “really going to earn THAT much” as having something to do with money.

CLA (Collegiate Learning Assessment) outcomes testing would presumably show learning…which is the primary driver of a non preprofessional degree and could be a point to parse the myriad of LAC learning experiences.

I don’t know if you can say the academics are “better”, but you can safely say that the top 20 LACS will be teaching at a much higher level because of the caliber of student attending the institution. It’s like asking if an honors course or a regular class is better. They may both be very good, but the honors class will be much more in depth and will progress at a faster pace because the student will be more intelligent and better able to grasp concepts more quickly.

I do not know if that is a proveable assumption. I think people want to believe it…after all there are those rankings, flawed as they are.

At what point do you separate the excellent LACs from the merely good LACs? Do you put the demarcation line at the 20th school as ranked by whatever ranking system you use? Is there really a significant difference between school 20 and school 21? This “top 20” cut off line is arbitrary.

Really? Standardized testing at the college level as the answer?

Imagine that rankings didn’t exist. How would the public know which schools are good?

PhD placement, info published by the college’s career office (they do like to tout their successes — if they don’t have much info, that isn’t a great sign).

@megan12:
“I don’t know if you can say the academics are “better”, but you can safely say that the top 20 LACS will be teaching at a much higher level because of the caliber of student attending the institution.”

If that is the case, then how do you explain some LACs far from the top sending as much or a greater proportion of their student body in to PhD programs in certain subjects than the top LACs do?

@OHMomof2 agreed Univ vs Lac is a dead horse debate. Texas has UT and TAMU both awesome schools, but my daughters have NO ZERO DESIRE to go to a school with 50k+ kids.

I agree stay on topic (even though this was off)

@PurpleTitan Honestly, I’m not sure one has anything to do with the other. That would depend on the student and what they’re majoring in, not the school itself. And I also don’t know if you count the students (like my S) who took a few years off between UG and PhD to work in their field.