Sorry to ask such a basic question here but I feel like I am always guessing what the acronym LAC stands for.
Is it for “Liberal Arts College”
or
“Local Area College”?
People use LAC to describe a small school often times but liberal arts colleges are not necessarily small. Isn’t Harvard and Yale considered liberal arts? I can see where the local area college would be smaller as opposed to the large flagship schools.
Thanks for your help.
Liberal Arts Colleges for the most part to do not grant masters or doctorates- some exceptions but do not have full on grad schools.
My impression is that they top out at 3,000 students, many with far less.
My interpretation has always been Liberal Arts College. I think H & Y are considered research universities although once get a liberal arts education at them. Sometimes, I’ll see reference to SLACs with the S for small.
LAC = Liberal Arts College
Harvard and Yale are categorized as research universities
Dartmouth is categorized as a research university. However, with its focus on undergraduate education it is more like a LAC
LAC = Liberal Arts College as mentioned above.
Usually such schools are small, under 3,000 is as good a cut off as any. Usually, but not always, such schools focus on a liberal arts education which may or may not include business (usually not) and engineering. Such schools may or may not, usually not, have curriculum for computer sciences but probably will have programs for hard sciences like chemistry.
They are usually private.
They are usually expensive.
You might get a lower COA with merit aid and other aid.
They usually will not emphasize or focus on revenue generating sports like football but might play hoops.
The athletics programs they do have are for the average athlete not the freaks of nature (I say that as a compliment believe it or not).
LAC’s might be a better for students who are a little bit socially challenged. Go ahead and shoot me but you know it is true. LAC’s would not necessarily be a good fir for someone who wants Greek life, parties, huge dorms, etc. for better or worse. Some people are okay with all that as part of maturing and growing up other parents/students want nothing to do with that. I, for example, went to a big public football playing school after going to a CC for the first two years and enjoyed the football but wasn’t interested in the drunken frat parties and booty calls.
One possibly down side to a LAC is you are living in a bubble not in the real world, in some cases, and not as prepared for the real word where, shockingly, you have to interact with people of all strips not just the cookie cutter ones who looked pretty much like you did at the tiny expensive LAC.
Proponents of LAC’s like to post data suggesting that LAC degrees, even though significantly more expensive to get, and that doesn’t even include grad school, earn as much as business, engineering and other vocational degrees like computer sciences but that data needs to be questioned if one thinks critically and without bias. I’m not saying all LAC’s work at Starbucks but if you major in psych with a minor in eastern European women’s studies and sociology you shouldn’t be surprised later if you have a hard time paying off your students dents without government welfare.
^I think there are very very few LACs as described that DO NOT have computer science.
^Well, that’s a lot of generalizations/stereotypes. Even among LACs, you’ll find colleges of different stripes - some with robust greek life, some with solid CS majors, football, etc. and shockingly! plenty of students NOT socially challenged. Too many laughable claims to want to address them all.
I was always under the impression that universities are comprised of several colleges, for example “The College of Arts and Sciences,” “The College of Business,” “The College of Engineering,” etc. whereas a liberal arts college usually has one “college.” Colleges are then made up of several schools. So, if you attend State Flagship University, you might be in the School of Architecture in the College of Arts and Sciences in State University.
per tutumon, Harvard University encompasses Harvard College, which is the undergraduate Liberal Arts College within the larger university. And yes, Dartmouth College really is a university.
LAC has always meant Liberal Arts College to me. The acronym that I find confusing is SLAC – is that a Small Liberal Arts College, or is that a Selective Liberal Arts College?
And you are aware of the PLAC’s, too, I presume? Public Liberal Arts Colleges…
Have never heard of Local Area Colleges – community, state, regional, national, international, yes…
Here are some public schools that market themselves as liberal arts colleges. Some of them are relatively inexpensive even for non-resident students.
http://www.coplac.org/members/
However, they do not seem to be “on the radar” much on these forums; most liberal arts college advocates here tend to focus on the private expensive ones.
LIberal arts college, mostly or only undergrad, don’t have multiple colleges within a larger university umbrella. They would have a music department, for instance, not a music school. Ditto with other areas of study. There are exceptions of course.
As a side note, regarding sports, the “little Ivies” were originally defined by a sports league. Middlebury, Bowdoin, Bates, Connecticut College. Amherst, Williams and others are LAC’s. Tufts and Wesleyan are universities but have a lot of the same features as LAC’s and are generally described as such, perhaps incorrectly by a strict definition.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ivies
The Colleges that Change Lives (see website or book by Pope) include good examples of LAC’s.
It’s best to be flexible. I would add that LAC’s often have small classes, fewer TA’s with the professor teaching the class directly versus (versus the star lecturer, TA-led discussion model), and are a little more personalized in general. Though a place like Harvard has the house system that provides an LAC-like residential experience for sure.
I think any college can feel like a bubble, even if there are 40,000 students. It is up to the student to find ways to connect with the community. Some make the effort, some don’t. The LACs I am familiar with all have tutoring programs in the public schools, volunteering with music programs, food drives, etc.
I’m not sure how I feel about a comment equating a lack of interest in Greek life and partying with being “socially challenged.” Did I misunderstand that?
Also, if anything kids who go to LACs are socially adept. They are small communities that typically want students who will contribute to their community big time. They are students who want to work closely with professors as in the Tutorial courses offered at Williams. I would think the opposite are true. Large research universities where you can hide in your lab or are just a number attract those who socially are challenged.
Wikipedia to the rescue: A liberal arts college is a college with an emphasis on undergraduate study in the liberal arts and sciences. A liberal arts college aims to impart a broad general knowledge and develop general intellectual capacities.
I received a BS in Mechanical Engineering from a LAC so yes I earn as much as anyone else with an engineering degree and more than some. My school also has a football team and when I was there 80% of the student body participated in Greek life (no longer true at that school but it was in the 80’s). I just wanted to show the stereotypes listed above do not hold for all LACs.
OP, note how CC organizes its list of colleges and universities, which sort of illustrates the answer albeit a bit crudely: http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/colleges-universities/. There is a separate category for “Top Liberal Arts Colleges.” I’m sure the list of top LAC’s is not complete and great schools aren’t on that list which is mainly for quick links. There is another list for Top Universities (and a separate list for the Ivy League). And a list for Service Academies, which are sometimes listed with LAC’s. Many of the top LAC’s have endowments per student that rival that of the richest universities, and they give comparable need based aid. The suggestion that LAC grads end up at Starbucks paying off huge student debts is so far off the mark as to be absurd, at least where the top LAC’s are concerned.
Even if you believe that some majors are useless, that’s a question of what you should major in, not whether you should go to an LAC or not.
I always read that “S” as “selective”. But people might use it to mean small too?
Liberal Arts Colleges educate undergraduate students exclusively, or very nearly exclusively so do not have professional or graduate schools.
LAC professors focus on teaching but also do research. There are not usually TAs doing any teaching though undergrad TAs do things for professors at many of them.
Classes tend to be small (but aren’t always).
Some LACs are private (probably most), some are public (SUNY Geneseo in NY or New College of Florida are public LACs).
Some are very selective, some are not.
Some have a liberal bent (say, Oberlin) and some have a conservative bent (Grove City College).
Most offer courses and majors in all of the liberal arts including computer science (and somewhat rarely, engineering - Harvey Mudd is one). Some very small schools are not LACs - Olin calls itself an engineering college and indeed doesn’t offer majors in the liberal arts. But it’s tiny.
Most or all have sports programs and are in Division 3 (though perhaps a couple of D2s could be called LACs, I am not sure). As such they can’t offer athletic scholarships, but they can and do recruit. Some very small ones can’t field a football team because of their size or a lack of interest, some have very good and very popular football teams, and many other sports as well.
The military academies are classified as LACs. @GoNoles85 might tell those cadets about their fragile not-real-world education, lol. Those are also free.
Majors or subjects that are less common generally may be absent or limited. For example, linguistics and less common foreign languages and literatures may be absent. Geology and physics are often very small departments. Statistics may exist as only a few courses under the math department.