@GoNoles85 “[T]he general rule is that most LAC’s do not offer programs in business or engineering. Thank goodness for the ones that do to make the others look much better statistically.”
I’m curious what you meant by this “make the others look better statistically” line.
Are you really under the misapprehension that everyone at a liberal arts college majors in sociology? The kids I personally know at LACs are majoring in neuroscience, economics, math, chemistry etc. One is in engineering. Math and science are part of the liberal arts, along with humanities and social sciences.
All that the term LAC means to me is that the school is small, focuses on teaching undergraduates rather than research and graduate students, and is more about obtaining a broad education than about preparing for a specific vocation, i.e., nursing, pharmacy, architecture, etc.
A much higher percentage of LAC students go on to graduate school (either law, medicine or business or PhD programs) than do graduates of research universities.
@OHMomof2 Yes, Amherst College has an engineering track They partnered with Dartmouth in a joint program. You can also take engineering courses through their consortium at UMA Amherst.
The College has an arrangement with Dartmouth College which permits Amherst students to take a year away from Amherst College (akin to a junior year abroad) to study engineering. Amherst College students can take their junior year at Dartmouth, graduate from Amherst with an Amherst College BA, and then complete one more year at Dartmouth College to obtain a Bachelors of Science in Engineering from Dartmouth.
Right. But Amherst doesn’t grant a degree in engineering. Umass (or Smith - a LAC with engineering!) engineering classes can’t be for Amherst credit either.
The Dartmouth arrangement seems very similar to the 3/2 a lot of LACs offer with universities, with the 2 years being spread out instead of back to back. The engineering degree is still from Dartmouth.
No. I do not think “everyone” at LAC’s is majoring in something soft that allows them to theorize endlessly and the ability to write 45 page papers on any subject but who can’t put in a light bulb. Short on practical skills, if you will.
I am sure the students you, and others know, at LAC’s are solid, honest, hard working folks. Good job. Be proud of them. My main distrust with LAC’s is the cost. Sure, some people get merit aid but if that means they become machines at age 12 to get EC and high GPA’s and SAT scores then I’ll pass on that also.
I am not in favor of burning through roughly $200K before grad school which could easily be one fifth of someone’s lifetime earnings and the longer they are in school the longer it takes to get to the workforce.
So, bottom line, some students get practical degrees out of an LAC and then get rewarded in the labor market later. Good for them. They played their cards right. However, many others end up with debt and degrees in things that are a bit less practical. Let’s not stick our heads in the sand about that. It isn’t my dime or my kids and if it is a good fit for some people, and they know what they are getting into, that is fine by me.
I also think, and this goes beyond LAC’s, that grade inflation is out of control and that an UG degree is the new high school which means you need a grad degree to have what used to be what an UG degree was. That is a weakness in the system that is hard to reverse. My hope is that people don’t use college as a 4-year summer camp experience and get out with something they can use to get careers and successfully integrate into society in professions that matter and by that I mean everything from cops to elected public servants as well as professions like accounting, medicine, law, building construction, etc.
In my state, the governor wants a $10,000 bachelor degree. Why not? With MOOCs and other technologies why can’t education be portable and affordable without huge debt loads?
Colleges shouldn’t try to be all things to all people–that’s my only point. Colleges should be proud of their identity and what they have to offer, and sell that to students who want it.
Well, the problem you identify with LACs is the same problem with all private colleges. It has nothing to do with whether the college is a 1700 student LAC or a private college with 10,000 or more students.
Your earlier posts seemed to suggest that LACs were more “summer camp” than other colleges. I guess you are no longer saying that, which is good because they aren’t.
So your issue is the cost? Well, there are plenty of research universities that have a similar price tag (think NYU, all the Ivies, Stanford, Wash U, Northwestern, NEU, Tulane, U Miami, BU, MIT… the list goes on an on). So I don’t see what that has to do with defining a LAC.
They also have respected degrees and programs. My first post simply answer the OP’s question as to what an LAC is, in my opinion. Yes, private schools have the same issues as LAC’s in terms of extravagant costs that can put pressure on parents and students alike. Why? It is unnecessary. WE could design a better system on the back of a cocktail napkin over a weekend. But, as long as people pay it …
And $50K per year is a quant. More like $66K now. Madness. It will never end until people stop paying it.
@GoNoles85 , I am probably late to the shooting party, but BANG BANG! Seriously, I think that’s quite unfair. I am extremely certain that the vast majority of LAC students attend because they want smaller classes, more interaction with professors, a more intimate atmosphere, community spirit, and all the other positive attributes that go with LACs. You will find socially awkard kids at any college, anywhere. Can I stop shooting now?
And it would be nice if you would acknowledge my point, I might add. Making a blanket statement that kids who attend LACs are socially awkward is really doing a diservice to someone out there who might be looking for real insight about these matters. Sheesh.
Yes all the complaints that @GoNoles85 is making are complaints that apply equally to private universities and I cannot fathom why @GoNoles85 is fixated on LAC’s as the source of those problems.
No one is fixated. As I said, the issue with cost is the same with the privates but at least the privates have professional and practical programs so that the students who survive have something to stand on. Now, that doesn’t mean some LAC programs don’t kick butt, I am sure they do, but many others seem awfully arcane.
So is your issue the costs, or the lack of a big greek scene and huge parties? I’m not sure if you’ve ever set foot on the campus of a LAC, but I can assure you they are not filled with socially inept students hiding from the real world. And really, who honestly thinks that a big Greek scene and large parties are the “real world?” Oh, and not only are there “practical” degrees offered at LACs, but those large universities you seem to prefer graduate more students per year in what you would call “arcane” majors than the LACs do.
I am not a fan of Greek life or drunken uneducated people. A student can get a good education, at a fair cost, at a public or private. I’ll let Captain Obvious know you stopped by next time I see him. The key is that the student (or parent) plan it so that they don’t pay too much and get out with something of value. If the student studies that helps. FWIIW, I said in my first post that most LAC’s are private. Thus, the concern I have with cost is not limited to LAC’s.
In summary it defines it as:
Undergraduate focus
Baccalaureate degrees
Small size
Liberal arts curriculum
Faculty focus on teaching
Focus on community
Residential
Follow the link for description of each bullet as well as a video.
Not all LACs are expensive (e.g. Truman State, University of Minnesota - Morris), but it seems that people on these forums favor talking about the expensive ones.
In the case of some of those universities listed…especially NYU and GW…only in some professional schools and niche areas of the A & S.
Incidentally, I turned down admission to NYU CAS not only because of the ridiculously high cost and measly FA/scholarship package, but also because for my academic fields of interest, my LAC(Oberlin) was stronger and had more faculty coverage.
In my case, the LAC was not only much more cost-effective with the near-full ride FA/scholarship package, but also much stronger for my academic interests. Considering all that, it was a no brainer to choose my alma mater over NYU.
Better academic coverage/offerings and no debt vs inferior academic coverage/offerings and nearly $100k in debt in late '90s/early '00s dollars…what a difficult decision.
Never heard of either one of your examples of inexpensive LAC’s. They are probably very small. Very, very small. But, on the bright side, you would have a really good chance to get to know your classmates and a chance to ask them how they ended up there. The answers, no doubt, would be fascinating. I’m not sure what else there would be to talk about over the next long 4 years though.
Wow, what’s going on here @GoNoles85 ? We’re you rejected from some LACs or something? Are you really implying that the students at Williams or Mudd are so socially inept and intellectually challenged that they are not capable of carrying an intelligetn conversation? Your comments are bizarre.