I did a quick check of one LAC, and they have forty majors, including geoarcheology – a major unlikely to be common at many universities. I’d call that a great range in academics in an absolute sense. A relative comparison to a “typical state school” is irrelevant.
As for specialized universities – though I’m reluctant to throw around names likes trading cards regarding schools I might not know enough about – I’d say MIT was one historically, and may still be.
@merc81, 40 is a small number of majors, relatively speaking.
By way of comparison, IU (Indiana), even without offering any type of engineering major, offers 180 majors.
I agree that MIT doesn’t have a lot of breadth of academic offerings. However, MIT is also a small university. For instance, it has about as many undergrads as a LAC like Richmond (which, granted, is big for a LAC).
Furthermore, with 64 majors, it still offers more majors than most LACs.
@ucbalumnus, true, GTech has a very limited number of majors (34) thanks to the GA state government. Probably to protect UGa, they decreed that GTech can’t offer any major that UGa offers and vice versa (though they both now offer business, CS, math, and sciences, so I don’t know if they now allow some intrusion on each other’s turf or what).
Note that MIT’s major selection includes economics, history, political science, anthropology, history, literature, French, German, Spanish, music, theater arts, creative writing, science writing, linguistics, philosophy, and science, technology, and society, so that students interested in the humanities and social studies can study many such subjects at MIT.
@PurpleTitan: As a university, MIT has over 11,000 students and 4500 undergraduates. This is substantially larger than the University of Richmond. But more pertinently, these comparisons have little bearing on the definition of niche in academia.
??? @merc81, if these comparisons “have little bearing on the definition of niche in academia”, then why did you bring up the topic of academic breadth?
I think the alumnae of SBC will pull it off. In addition to the law firm, they now have a Board of Directors for the nonprofit. As well, a State Senator has fired off a letter to the State AG about the legality of the closure. I am not an alum of SBC, but am fairly impressed with the alumnae. As a grad of a national LAC, I am totally committed to that type of education. More power to them.
@swimsoc2013, pull off what? To have a functioing LAC, they’d need students who are willing to pay to attend.
@PurpleTitan wrote:
“GTech has a very limited number of majors (34) thanks to the GA state government.”
So therefore it can be described as niche: its academic appeal is dependent on relatively narrow external factors, in this case the priorities of State of Georgia.
@ucbalumnus: I knew I was on shaky ground with MIT.
@merc81, oh, I agree. There aren’t too many large research universities like GTech, however.
More to the point, that doesn’t mean that most LACs aren’t niche.
“then why did you bring up the topic of academic breadth?”
Party because my post #576 was largely hypothetical. But beyond that, because it’s relevant in an absolute sense. Regarding relative aspects, of course some colleges have greater academic breadth than others. That’s axiomatic and didn’t need to be proven.
But skimmed over in the discussion, you asked me to find a specialized university, and with the help of @ucbalumnus, we found at least one university with 13,000 undergraduates with fewer majors than a 1900-student LAC.
I’m not sure what the point of your challenge was, if you are not willing to broaden your viewpoint after it was met.
I think it’s a little disingenuous to imply that the word, “niche” is a completely neutral bit of terminology when applied to a cohort comprising some of the most influential colleges in the country. The most contemporary common usage for the word is with the marketing of commercial products, as in “niche product”. But, before there can be a niche product there has to be a niche market or audience. I don’t know of a single selective LAC that deliberately limits its appeal to a smaller target audience than their larger peers - that really would be financial suicide. They comprise a third of the COFHE cohort group and the combined financial aid awards of those thirty-five colleges and universities alone amount to one of the largest yearly transfers of wealth from one generation to the next in the country. The appeal for a first class education at an affordable price is pretty unlimited, IMO.
Sorry, any college (let’s drop the niche and LAC terminology for a minute) that does not have an undergraduate degree in business or accounting or finance or leisure studies or K-12 education has already decided what it wants to be and what it doesn’t want to be, i.e. all things to all people. Any college without a school of engineering, or any college without agronomy or nursing, has made strategic decisions about what it wants to do well to fulfill its mission, and what it doesn’t want to do.
How is this not “niche”?
I can’t think of a single LAC (top tier, middle tier, or bottom tier) that hasn’t made conscious and strategic decisions about “limiting its appeal to a smaller target audience than their larger peers”. Whether financial suicide or not- the decision is a conscious one.
What about this is judgmental? This is reality.
Don’t go to Princeton to major in nursing. Don’t go to Cal Tech for an accelerated degree in pharmacy or occupational therapy.
is this is a knock on Princeton or Cal Tech??? Or an observation that nursing, pharmacy and OT are not part of these universities (rather small universities compared to UT or UIUC or Michigan) mission or “niche”?
They may not deliberately do this, but it’s certainly my observation that they do have a smaller target audience, and that it is not the same as their larger peers. I think they are facing a less severe version of the same kind of challenge that is facing women’s colleges.
@circuitrider, you could argue that Bennington College is a niche market – It appeals only to a certain type of artsy student, doesn’t give grades, just letters from professors, etc.
Also, Hampshire College in Massachusetts – again, like Bennington,students do independent studies rather than majors, etc.
I would also argue that Olin College is a niche institution appealing only to a certain type of highly motivated engineering student who wants to make connections between fields, do independent studies, etc.
My son is at Sewanee, which is again a niche institution – not everybody wants to go to a college in the middle of nowhere which is Southern, Episcopal, etc.
I think that one of the charms of LAC’s is that they often have their own peculiar, particular flavors. I guess the problem is that even within that universe, you can’t be selling just the one flavor that no one wants to buy anymore. I think Bennington should probably be on that list of ‘the next to close’ because I think it’s hard to sell what they produce to parents who want to know about things like marketability and career placement.
Cooper Union- niche. Yeshiva University- niche. If you want a degree in French literature don’t go to Cooper Union. If you don’t want to spend half your day immersed in Jewish textual study and then half your day fulfilling your secular degree requirements don’t go to Yeshiva. Cooper Union has a great engineering school. Yeshiva has no engineering- great or otherwise.
Remind me why this is problematic for some of you???
“Any college without … agronomy … has made strategic decisions about what it wants to do well”
By some of the definitions being offered here, maybe college itself is niche – at least when the reference is to that niche group of colleges without agronomy, of course.
@Hunt
I think you’re confusing notoriety with market. In purely business terms, the market is there, the LACs aren’t reaching it to the same extent.
@blossom - if you want to conflate the word, “niche” with being elite - I’m fine with that.
Landmark college? Gallaudet? Coast Guard Academy? Pratt Institute?
I don’t see how niche is being used inappropriately to describe these institutions.
I don’t think so. I think it’s wishful thinking that more students would apply to the LACs instead of research universities of comparable quality if only they knew more about the LACs. I think there is just a smaller–and different–market for smaller institutions, and in particular those that are in remote locations. The market for Dartmouth is different from the market for Brown, as well.