Really?
I often had very in-depth intellectual conversations with my own father, who did not even graduate from high school, and who worked as a machinist in a factory.
Anyway, there are these things, they are called public libraries, filled with books and scholarly journals. Anyone has access to them.
@BeeDAre once again your dad and you were intellectual and had great discussions. we are only judging college campuses. it is not possible for a CC to consistently create an environment that promotes intellectual conversations due to the nature of their design. 2-year non residential stepping stones.
i am highlighting that individuals can be intellectual but their environments might not be. you are missing that distinction.
@khanam, To be fair, I read your other comment just now, and agree somewhat, about CCs not being set up to foster such discussions; and agree that 4-year residential campuses are better suited by design.
However, I often take Continuing Ed courses at my local CC and I’ve had plenty of intellectual discussion there, as well, after class, with the professor and other students (I usually take foreign language and/or creative writing classes, so maybe that’s the difference.)
However, many young people attending two years of CC to get gen ed credits for transfer, or simply an AA, are, of course, intelligent, and will take classes for either degree that will foster some intellectual discourse within the class.
I just find it hard to believe that the most elite colleges will have the highest amount of intellectuals and intellectual conversations - Self-reflection and intellectual pursuits are not necessarily reserved for the wealthy and privileged.
I repeat what I said a few pages upthread (in fewer words this time):
If a student is interested in engaging in intellectual conversations,* said student will be able to do so no matter what college they are at—and will find it phenomenally easy to do so.
If a student is not interested in engaging in intellectual conversations, said student will be able to avoid doing so no matter what college they are at—and will find it phenomenally easy to do so.
Basically, the question that opened this thread is ultimately pointless and silly, because it presumes differences between colleges, when the only operant difference is actually between individual students.
That’s where D’s happen 
It’s a nice lounge and all the kids on the floor hang out there. Do hey discuss philosophy and politics all the time? No, but she was surprised at how much it does happen, enough to list it as one of the things that’s very different from the conversations she has with her HS friends.
@dfbdfb, maybe I am wrong, but isn’t your field linguistics? If so, that seems like a field that would attract the more intellectual type of student, especially as majors and in advanced classes. So maybe you see the clusters at those schools where it isn’t necessarily mainstream because of the classes you teach. (But I could be wrong about your area of expertise…). And in fact, one way to seek those clusters out probably is by major. I went to Michigan, and the most intellectual people I knew were generally in LS&A. I knew lots of business & engineering majors, and most of them just didn’t spend much energy or have much interest on truly intellectual pursuits. I found those types more in high level English classes, for example.
Yes, I teach linguistics, but the bulk of my teaching is in general-education, survey-of-the-field type classes where lots of the students are taking the class because, if we’re entirely honest, they’re simply desperate to fulfill a university humanities requirement that fits in their schedule. (Well, and the occasional wants-to-be-a-linguist. Those kind of frighten me a bit, to be honest—I mean, what sort of college freshman from this country actually even knows what linguistics is??) I actually like teaching those sorts of courses, though, precisely because it keeps me from being too siloed—it’s fun to get a spectrum of students that includes nursing and business majors, too (and the occasional mechanical engineer, who always seem to do spectacularly in linguistics classes).
@BeeDAre I do agree that there are interesting intellectual conversations at CCs as well. Just not as often because people go home after class. Its a lot more intense when you have dorms. It is also not about eliteness - I just believe that some colleges seek out and attract the intellectually curious and they are different from most standard colleges and CCs. Reed cant be considered elite compared to say a Yale but having visited Reed - there is a reason for it being labeled as the most intellectual college in america by CTCL, not Yale. Yale attracts the academically brilliant ones first - they may or may not be intellectually curious about arcane topics. Reed seems to have the opposite identity.
@dfbdfb I agree with you too about people finding all kinds of forums to debate intellectual topics. Heck we all decided to have a lively debate about intellectual debate on this forum! But where do you expect such discussions to be MORE commonplace? CCs? an engineering school in say china? LACs such as Wesleyan? The US armed forces colleges? Religious schools? And the answer to your sidebar is “all of those and more” - if it is debatable it is an intellectual topic of discussion. Funny but my 1st degree was in chemical engineering and found linguistics a beautiful subject and ended up taking 2 additional courses in linguistics than originally planned.
And @OHMomof2 is absolutely correct - we do have a greater proclivity to engage in such conversations when we are in the dorms. I remember sitting though an 4 hour + session with 5 of my dorm buddies crammed into 1 little room arguing about how to prove the non-existence of the universe using pure logic. I’m sure its the same 25 years later.
Well, my answer has been and remains (a) all of them, with the proviso that I have no insight into colleges outside of the US; but (b) with a caveat that the built environment—including the existence of dorms and such—can make it more likely that such conversations can occur, simply because students are more likely to be in more frequent contact with each other.
If my (b) is correct, then that would explain the perception that, say, community colleges are less likely to have intellectual conversations than selective liberal arts colleges—it isn’t that the students are different, but rather that the students are around each other less.
My son and his friends have been having in-depth philisophical, religious, and political discussions since they were ~14. Their intended majors are very different – computer science, physical therapy, sustainable agriculture, journalism, theater, and business are the ones I remember – so I don’t see intellectual curiosity clustered within certain majors at all.
“Reed can’t be considered elite compared to say a Yale” (#87)
How come?
I mean – using SAT scores as a convenient tool – what would make a fairly typical Yale student with a 1410 score more intellectually impressive than a fairly typical Reed student with a 1470 score?
@merc81 - that is the point i am making. reed imparts an amazing education and has comparable SAT/GPA stats to many so called “elite” colleges - ivies etc. i personally hold reed in very very high regard (top 25 in the country in my combined list which would include state universities, ivies, private universities and LACs) having researched a bunch of all. Being “elite” though is a label others impart to colleges, not me. And they go by acceptance rates, yields, research papers published (its almost 100% an undergraduate school) and I am not sure what else.
“I mean – using SAT scores as a convenient tool – what would make a fairly typical Yale student with a 1410 score more intellectually impressive than a fairly typical Reed student with a 1470 score?”
Reed is a great college and an intellectual one, but are you claiming that the typical Reed student has an SAT score that is significantly higher than the typical Yale student? Because everything I can find online indicates the exact opposite. Reed’s combined SAT mean is a 2060, while Yale’s is about 200 points higher.
http://www.reed.edu/ir/admission.html
http://www.prepscholar.com/sat/s/colleges/Yale-admission-requirements
Maybe I misunderstood your post?
Some engineering students are quite intellectually minded about subjects they like. However, intellectual discussions about advanced engineering topics may not be easily understandable to other students.
@ThankYouforHelp: What I did (#91) was to attempt to emphasize the intellectual overlap between Reed and Yale by selecting SAT points within the middle range for both schools as examples of what could be considered as statistically describing two roughly typical students at the respective colleges. Using another source (USNWR) to complement yours, Yale’s scores are indeed reported as being ~130 points higher than Reed’s on average on a 1600 point scale.
(SAT Middle ranges: Yale, 1410-1600; Reed, 1280-1470.)
Most selective colleges will provide the environment you seek. Swarthmore, Reed and U Chicago are the most self-consciously ‘intellectual.’