“In the case of the below study, liberal arts colleges appear to have supported their students’ cognitive development beyond that available through less focused institutions:”
Apart from being partially funded by a LAC, this was their note of caution:
“While there were 11 liberal arts colleges in the sample, the comparison groups of research universities and regional institutions consisted of only three such institutions respectively. This constitutes an unequivocal limitation of the study. Consequently, with respect to generalizing to all four-year institutions, and particularly to research universities and regional institutions, the effects we uncovered must be viewed with substantial caution.”
Because there were only 3 national universities and 3 regional universities, they had to put in the phrases: unequivocal limitation and substantial caution.
I have other issues as well in terms of what they studied (mostly things a LAC does, and not a RU does wrt STEM subjects), unless they reveal the 17 colleges, it would be hard take much from this.