^ Many people aren’t aware that a LAC is an option worth seriously considering. I attended a research university and so did my spouse. Until I my kids reached college age, I had little experience with small liberal arts colleges. This probably is even more typical for families west of the Mississippi, where LACs are less common than in the NE. In many states, almost the only state-supported options are universities.
By my count, 563 of 587 students (96%) surveyed by Niche at US News T20 national LACs agree that their professors have positive attributes identified in the survey. 1441 of 1705 students (85%) surveyed by Niche at T20 national universities agree that their professors have the same positive attributes identified in the survey. At the highest-ranked state university, 76% of surveyed students agreed (which seems to be a typical agreement rate for other “public Ivies”). On a student review site, on the pages for a couple of the highest-ranked state universities, one can see comment after comment complaining about large classes and over-reliance on teaching assistants. The National Survey of Student Engagement assessment reports I’ve seen also suggest to me that LACs tend to have a higher level of student-faculty engagement than big RUs do. It’s interesting, too, that college professors often send their kids to LACs (http://www.cbsnews.com/news/where-professors-send-their-children-to-college/).
I wouldn’t say that the difference between 76% and 96% satisfaction (especially in reference to rather vaguely-defined faculty attributes) automatically justifies a big price premium for LACs. Nevertheless I’ve looked at enough different kinds of data, and anecdotal reports, to conclude that just w.r.t. undergraduate teaching quality (and ignoring other factors that might be very important), LACs do tend to be worth some price premium over a typical state flagship for many arts & science majors. That’s assuming one values high-quality instruction as something valuable in itself (because it won’t necessarily lead to a higher financial ROI, according to some research findings.) It also assumes high-quality instruction in the liberal arts involves what LACs tend to deliver from year 1: lots of class discussion, frequent graded writing assignments, more short-answer or essay tests than multiple choice (or T/F), mentoring by experienced professors, and guided exposure to primary source materials. If you don’t think any of that is necessary, then it’s certainly cheaper to build a college education around big lecture classes, text books, and multiple choice tests. According to IPEDS data, Yale spends over $100K per student per year on instruction, UChicago about $84K. T20 LACs typically spend about $25K-$40K, top public universities (Berkeley, Michigan, Texas, Wisconsin) about $15K-$25K. Many factors (including economies of scale) affect instruction expenditures per FTE student, but certainly these would include faculty salaries, the S-F ratio, TA usage, and average class size.