Maybe not, but I imagine scope, area/topic and frequency differ from school to school.
I think most of the top 30 or so will have plenty of opportunities for research, not all of which are STEM related.
Also, many schools will offer assistance away from campus research such as funding summer internship and research opportunities away from the college. This can be especially beneficial to those students pursuing various fields that don’t line up with school sponsored research. Here is some info on what just one program within Haverford supports (there are other programs within the college who offer similar funding which mean more funding than just what is listed here):
Another is through the Hurford Center for Arts and Humanities:
https://www.haverford.edu/hcah/center/programs-and-grants/student-funding/internships
Combine these programs, along with STEM driven and other college based internships and a few additional programs, and you see that there is a fair amount of support and funding covering a range of majors. It can be especially beneficial to those lower income and middle class students who might be otherwise limited by financial considerations in choosing summer plans.
I would say that it does vary by subject, and that some LACs can hold their own relative to research universities if one takes into account the relative size of the departments.
I have built a large spreadsheet of schools that calculates the number of NSF graduate research awards (by undergraduate institution) per subject area normalized to the number of graduates in that particular subject area.
Since these are very selective awards (they require faculty sponsorship and are judged by an NSF peer review committee) they seem to be a reasonable proxy for access to high quality research.
I have extracted one subject (Math) from the spreadsheet as an example. It includes
Name of School
Number of Math NSF Awards in the last ten years
Number of Math and Statistics grads
Number of Applied Math and Computational Math grads
Total number of Math grads
The ratio of NSF Math awards to Total Math grads
This allows people to see the relative size of the respective Math departments as well as both the absolute number of awards and the normalized value. One weakness of singling out a single subject is that there can be some cross-over between subjects when it comes to awards. For example, an Applied Math major may actually get an award in a another subject area that he/she applies his/her math skills toward.
I suspect (but have not verified) that the absolute number of awards (for universities) correlates with the more traditional math department rankings and that the large size of some of these departments may hinder access to high quality research. I was going to eliminate schools with only one award in 10 years, but decided to leave them in as an existence proof that it is at least possible to win such an award at these schools.
…NSF M&…A&
School…Awd…S…C…Total…Ratio
CTech…20…15…12…27…0.74
Princeton…25…35…0…35…0.71
Reed…3…7…0…7…0.43
Mudd…13…9…23…32…0.41
MIT…36…75…21…96…0.38
Stanford…19…30…31…61…0.31
Harvard…39…65…91…156…0.25
Cornell…9…43…0…43…0.21
Duke…10…48…0…48…0.21
Williams…5…26…0…26…0.19
Yale…9…21…26…47…0.19
Oberlin…4…22…0…22…0.18
Tufts…3…10…7…17…0.18
UChicago…17…110…0…110…0.15
Bryn Mawr…4…29…0…29…0.14
G Tech…5…0…38…38…0.13
Swarthm…2…16…0…16…0.13
Macalaster…2…16…0…16…0.13
Dartmouth…3…27…0…27…0.11
RPI…4…37…0…37…0.11
Columbia…8…46…41…87…0.09
U Tulsa…2…18…5…23…0.09
Carleton…2…25…0…25…0.08
Notre D…4…54…0…54…0.07
St Olaf…3…43…0…43…0.07
UNC…8…70…45…115…0.07
Col of NJ…2…29…0…29…0.07
UMCP…9.133…0…133…0.07
CSOM…3…32…13…45…0.07
Pomona…2…32…0…32…0.06
Michigan…12.199…0…199…0.06
Wash U…3…53…1…54…0.06
Pitt…5 …45…45…90…0.06
U Ill Chic…3…38…16…54…0.06
CMU…5…77…14…91…0.05
Rice…3…42…14…56…0.05
Arizona St .6…95…17…112…0.05
W & M…2…39…0…39…0.05
W&L…1…19…0…19…0.05
UMBC …4…79…0…79…0.05
Smith…1…20…0…20…0.05
BC…3…62…0…62…0.05
U Arizona…4…86…0…86…0.05
Lew& Clark.1…22…0…22…0.05
Case…1…18…5…23…0.04
U Mass …4…92…0…92…0.04
Wesleyan…1…24…0…24…0.04
Berkeley…15.181.191…372…0.04
Penn…2…52…0…52…0.04
NYU…3…78…0…78…0.04
U Miami…1…19…7…26…0.04
Amherst…1…26…0…26…0.04
U Wisc…5…122…8…130…0.04
Mich St…3…76…2…78…0.04
UC Irving…4…106…0…106…0.04
Florida St …3…83…0…83…0.04
Vanderbilt…1…29…0…29…0.03
UVA …2…61…0…61…0.03
Tulane…1…31…0…31…0.03
U Wash…7…224…0…224…0.03
George…1…33…0…330…0.03
Brown…3…12…88…100…0.03
NWestrn…2…60…7…67…0.03
UT Austin.7…252…0…252…0.03
U FLorida .3…121…0…121…0.02
BU…1…43…0…43…0.02
UIUC…4…187…0…187…0.02
UC Davis.2…21…81…102…0.02
UCSD…3…118…50…168…0.02
Hopkins…1…41…17…58…0.02
UCLA…4…327…105…432…0.01
Is this recent data or the 2011 data that many have referenced?
I get confused by what constitutes a LAC and what doesn’t. Someone earlier argued that Columbia College wasn’t a LAC because it was part of a major research university. Then why is Barnard considered a LAC? Women who attend it get the same Columbia degrees as students at Columbia College? Similarly, aren’t Yale College and Harvard College LACs? Or by LAC do we mean small, stand alone colleges (in which case the Claremont Colleges wouldn’t qualify)?
It is last ten years (through I believe 2015) because of the lag in reporting data and my lag in building the spreadsheet.
There is another CC thread with the raw NSF award data.
LACs primarily focus on offering a range of liberal arts offerings geared towards undergraduate level study. Some may have things like engineering, some may have a few graduate level programs but they don’t focus on graduate level teaching nor preprofessional/vocational coursework for the most part.
@exlibris97 there’s no formal definition of LAC but USNWR uses this model: “National Universities offer a full range of undergraduate majors, plus master’s and doctoral programs, and emphasize faculty research. National Liberal Arts Colleges focus almost exclusively on undergraduate education. They award at least 50 percent of their degrees in the arts and sciences.” https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/how-us-news-calculated-the-rankings. Numerous LAC’s participate in a consortium. Besides the Claremont Consortium (Pomona, CMC, HMC, Pitzer, Scripps), there is the Five College Consortium (Amherst, Hampshire, Mt. Holyoke, Smith, UMass-Amherst) and the Tri-College Consortium (Swartmore, Bryn Mawr, Haverford). In the Claremont Consortium the five colleges are located contiguously but each college has its own administration, faculty, endowment and admissions process. So the individual Claremont colleges are indeed all LAC’s.
“LACness” is a fuzzy subject, because some small universities can be as or more “LAC-Like” than some LACs.(depending on your measurement criteria)
The definitive source for school classification is the Carnegie Classification System.
US News uses the Baccalaureate Category within the Basic Classification to define LAC. You can look at Carnegie’s definition on their web page.
Here is the definition, I don’t think that US News includes schools in the subcategory of :Diverse Fields
Wesleyan is right on the borderline due to its small masters and doctoral programs.
A school like Babson/Olin is categorized as a Special Focus Institution because the degrees they grant are in Business/Engineering - even though they both approach their subjects from a Liberal Arts perspective.
The Claremont schools (minus Pomona, which is a more traditional LAC) are categorized as LACS because the majority of the degrees they grant fall within the overall domain of Arts and Sciences.
http://carnegieclassifications.iu.edu/classification_descriptions/basic.php
I appreciate the various responses, all of which convince me that the “LAC” label is neither precise nor very useful. I again use the example of Barnard. It meets the USNWR definition of a “LAC” but its degrees are, in fact, awarded by Columbia University and most of its processes etc., are integrated with the larger university. And Barnard isn’t the only “anomaly”. Not the first time that USNWR has been found a bit lacking in precision.
Indeeed, one might establish some definitional criteria.
Like, to be included : (just making up some numbers)
-At least 95% of the students there are undergraduates.
- The program of studies, eg majors offered and selected, are at least 80% the same (or equivalent with slightly different names, eg “Government” vs. “politics”) as some generic “template” of majors offered by liberal arts colleges generally. So for example, a tech college, where almost nobody majors in social sciences or humanities, is not a “liberal arts college” for this purpose, but rather a “specialty school”.
- At least [90% ?] of student courses are taken at that institution, not some other institution. If more than that are taken at other institutions, then the conglomerate should be considered together.
- Some student enrollment limit.
- maybe some limit as to # classes with > x students, and # classes using graduate OR undergraduate TAs and graders.
Barnard seem to fit the description fine to me. Barnard itself does not offer graduate diplomas or classes. It also doesn’t offer preprofessional majors. Definition fits.
Here’s the new 2017 Payscale ranking for Liberal Arts ROI
- Harvey Mudd
- Washington & Lee
- Bucknell
- Wabash
- Claremont McKenn
- Hamilton
- Williams
- Lafayette
- Colgate
- Union
- Swarthmore
- College of the Holy Cross
- U of Richmond
- Amherst
- Pomona
and here’s the link to the report
http://www.payscale.com/college-roi/school-type/liberal-arts
re#92, Barnard might flunk 3rd criteria, Thereby requiring consolidation that would cause it to flunk subsequent criteria.
But that was just me making up stuff, so…
“But that was just me making up stuff, so…”
Yup. 
If students study abroad for a semester, they aren’t going to meet that criteria of yours.
The lack of a single women’s college on that payscale ranking is striking.
Maybe they aren’t as pre-professional in student interests and/or academic offerings.
(not that all the schools on the list are pre-professional per se, but that is measured in degrees…)
Barnard markets itself as a “LAC within a U” pretty specifically, with a best of both worlds kind of thing. The degrees say Barnard College of Columbia University BTW - they are not indistinguishable from Columbia College.
FWIW there’s cross-registration and sharing of clubs and activities, but housing is separate and grad requirements are different.
Well for one, it’s Payscale. That’s all self-reported data is it not? I think I can go make up a profile and report myself as a millionaire from Smith if i want to, right now.
And if you look at the current ROI report, the #1 school, period, is one you never read about on CC -
http://www.payscale.com/college-roi - it’s the United States Merchant Marine Academy. #4 (and also #7?) is SUNY Maritime.
I don’t put much (any!) weight in those pay scale rankings. So much depends on the type of student a school attracts and the type of majors that are popular. Some schools attract the Peace Corps type, others the Investment Banker type in great numbers. You really can’t parse much from those lists in terms of an individual students educational experience and career marketability.