<p>National Universities seem to be more popular than liberal arts colleges. My question is... why?
Are they better for producing good students?</p>
<p>Liberal Arts: Small Class sizes, don't have to have as much hassle trying to get your classes reserved because there aren't many students in the first place. Also (and correct me if i'm wrong) they tend to have higher 4 year Grad Rates. Some might also argue that because liberal arts schools are all about undergraduate, they give a better education than universities who focus all on graduate, treating their undergraduates like 2nd class citizens (which is maybe why princeton is always ranked so well, because it's graduate program is not as significant as the undergrad.</p>
<p>Universities: I imagine they have more resources, and more teachers (Even though those teachers have more students to teach.</p>
<p>In your opinion, which one is better for undergrads (assuming that the student has no idea what he/she wants to major in but wants to explore his/her horizons rather?)</p>
<p>The only significant reason national universities tend to be more popular than LACs is because they’re more affordable. With one, two exceptions, LACs are private schools which, without FA, usually cost double that of main state universities.</p>
<p>I don’t believe either has the upper hand in preparing undergraduates. Both have their pluses and minuses.</p>
<p>This topic gets a lot of discussion on College Confidential… Agree with katliamom that (at least the perception) is that universities are cheaper. Although financial aid and merit aid can bring that cost fairly close in some cases, a lot of people are not aware of that. Universities (state ones) get direct subsidies from state governments that LACs do not get; in our state, the public university system has eight four year state universities. Given the large size of most of them, they produce a lot more grads than the LACs in our state (and most states, I assume).</p>
<p>One other difference not mentioned above is that many universities have graduate programs, and often those grad students teach the undergraduate classes (especially intro sessions).</p>
<p>Here are two sort of opposing schools of thought on the choice:
If you can get a cheaper education at a university and think you want to go to Grad school, then go for the cheaper education. You will have more money for grad school. Even if your grad school is funded (say, in the STEM areas), you will still be better off without the loans. Even if you don’t go to grad school, you would be better off without the loans.
Opposing perspective would be to go to an LAC for undergrad for the individualized attention, then move on to the research university (which often is more focused on graduate education) for the grad degree. But ONLY if finances support this. FYI, this is the route my kids have taken.</p>
<p>I notice you are from Maryland, one of the few states that has an LAC as part of your state university system (St. Mary’s of Maryland). So you could get the low cost of in state AND and LAC experience there. It is a nice school, we visited for D2, even though we are out of state.</p>
<p>National universities are bigger, more numerous, and offer a wider variety of programs. Therefore, they can accomodate more students. Furthermore, relatively low-cost public universities are available in every state. Most LACs are expensive private schools. They are not equally available in all areas of the country.</p>
<p>In my opinion, LACs tend to fight above their weight. That is, some of them (like Kenyon or Whitman) are worthy alternatives to more famous, prestigious national universities (in terms of the level of student-faculty engagement and overall quality of instruction you’re likely to get in a typical class.) Of course, many variables come into play.</p>
<p>Like most of the other respondents, I prefer LACs. My son is at one and, all else being equal, I wish I’d gone to one instead of to Big State U. OTOH, if you have no idea what you want, be sure that the LACs you’re interested in have all the majors you could want; for example, if you might end up wanting to major in engineering or biochemistry or Japanese or business fields such as accounting, many LACs won’t be able to support that as well.</p>
<p>Try not to overgeneralize about the characteristics of LACs versus Universities. A really good university does not use grad students to teach classes. And not all LACs provide a high quality education. Schools range from crappy to exceptional in BOTH categories.
If you like one type of college experience over another that is fine. But I think you are always best off to analyze the particulars of individual schools rather than just dismiss a school based on the LAC versus university label.</p>
This isn’t always true. My sister is at a LAC and has run into problems registering for some of the courses she wants/needs. For example, some art history majors actually end up taking the required intro art history course as seniors (!) because it consistently fills up extremely quickly. There are fewer students at LACs, sure, but LACs also have fewer courses. The cap on class sizes (20 at her school) also results in fierce competition for popular classes.</p>
<p>
On the contrary, Princeton has many highly ranked programs and a graduate school that is every bit as large as any of similar private schools except a few like Harvard and Chicago. (Princeton has 2610 graduate students, compared to 2788 at Yale, 2179 at Penn, 2800 at Duke, 1839 at WUStL, etc.) Princeton uses TAs for discussions and labs like most universities, and like many research universities it has some research scholars who don’t teach. </p>
<p>The difference is that Princeton lacks the professional schools (law, medicine, business, divinity, etc.) that other universities have. The existence of these schools does not necessarily make undergraduates “second class citizens” because they are not competing for the same resources, so I am not at all sure what difference that makes, but many are firmly convinced that this makes a huge difference in the undergraduate academic experience. </p>
<p>
Not really more numerous, actually. In 2010:
[ul][<em>]Research (PhD) universities: 282 (15%)
[</em>]Regional (MA) universities: 646 (36%)
[li]LACs: 890 (49%)[/ul]</p>[/li]
<p>Insignificant difference. Since research universities are often very large, however, they enroll the most students despite being much smaller than any other category.
[ul][<em>]Research (PhD) universities: 4,026,611 (51%)
[</em>]Regional (MA) universities: 2,654,459 (34%)
[li]LACs: 1,150,190 (15%)[/ul]</p>[/li]
<p>
Agreed. If I had to pick a college again today, I’d have trouble picking a university I liked more. Among LACs, though, I can think of several I like at least as much - Bowdoin, Swat, Haverford, etc. I’ve been slowly converted to the LAC side of this debate over the years, and I plan (well, hope) to teach at one when I’m done with my degree.</p>
<p>That said, I’ve only ever attended universities and got a good education at all of them. As katliamom said, there is no “better” option here…only better for any individual based on his/her own academic interests, social needs, interests, etc.</p>
<p>(national) Research Universities are larger (and older) than liberal arts colleges. Given their large class sizes, they produce more winners of prestigious awards (nobel prize, fields medal, etc.) RU’s are also focused on research, which adds to their prestige.</p>
<p>I think a good distinction between the two is that RUs are more academic (focusing on theory, resarch, etc.) whereas LACs are more pedagogical (focusing on teaching, learning, etc.)</p>
<p>Given that students go to a university to learn, and that’s what LACs focus on, they might seem to be the obviously better option. However, there are advantages to going to a research university. One is working with some of the world’s most highly regarded individuals in the field. This might include world renown philosophers, fields medal winners, or even famous actors. These individuals seldom teach in LACs, due to their de-emphasis on research and relative obscurity compared to RUs.</p>
<p>To answer your question, the school which will produce the better student will be the one that suits the student better. I think both promote growth for the student, but they just promote (and focus) on different types of growth. There’s a way you can only grow when you have the type of individual attention that you get in a liberal arts college; however, i also think that there’s a type of growth that you can only get when you work with top faculty within the field. </p>
<p>Personally, i feel i grew quite a bit by taking several classes with an extremely influential professor in my field. More than that, i was also able to get him to entertain certain questions and arguments that i had, and get feedback from him. If i wondered about his theory, i could get his direct answer, and not the guess of someone else who might be teaching it. That was an opportunity that many people would like to have, but generally don’t have access to (these professors tend to be terrible with emails unless it’s a formal academic matter, for example.)</p>
<p>Granted, i’m generalizing here. Most people who went to RUs probably didn’t have access to top faculty within their field; or didn’t take advantage of them if they did. But i also don’t think it’s the case that most RUs have completely disconnected professors that have no interest in pedagogy; or that all LACs have fantastic teachers.</p>
<p>Well, I can think of more than two public LACs with relatively low out-of-state costs of attendance (Truman State, Minnesota - Morris, NC - Asheville, SUNY - Geneseo).</p>
<p>But there are other reasons that big universities may be more popular:</p>
<ul>
<li>LACs de-emphasize overtly pre-professional majors, which are the most popular ones overall among college students.</li>
<li>Many students attend their local state universities for (commuting) convenience reasons.</li>
</ul>
<p>Have to agree, though that neither type is necessarily better than the other. It depends a lot on the student. There is also considerable variation in desirable and undesirable characteristics between individual schools of each type.</p>
<p>warblersrule, where does that LAC number come from, and what is it counting? I’ve never seen a count so high for LACs before. </p>
<p>The Carnegie Foundation site lists 98 institutions with “Arts & sciences focus, no graduate coexistence” (average enrollment 1570) and another 33 “A&S-F/SGC: Arts & sciences focus, some graduate coexistence” (average enrollment 2884).
([Carnegie</a> Classifications | Undergraduate Instructional Program Tables](<a href=“Carnegie Foundation Classifications”>Carnegie Foundation Classifications))</p>
<p>I don’t think that, in general, one is better than the other. However, for any particular student, one may be better.</p>
<p>Some students thrive in large research universities, and not just in STEM courses. Some of the flagship state universities have great programs in English and history for example, and some of these have some of the most outstanding professors in the country. Students who go in with lots of AP credit may be able to bypass most of the large lecture courses and/or classes taught by TAs and go right into small classes with professors. Students who are in large lecture classes can get to know professors. They just have to try harder – stay after class to ask questions, go to office hours, etc. Most professors with large classes want to get to know their students and they welcome having students come by. I had several TAs when I was a student years ago, and some of them were very good. One was excellent – a future star professor.</p>
<p>Other students thrive in small LACs. They do better in a more nurturing environment, where the classes are small and everyone knows the professors. Some students say that those college communities are “like family”. This can be particularly good for students who are less self-confident and/or less comfortable with dealing with the bureaucracy of a larger university (although warblersrule has pointed out that LACs can also have course scheduling problems).</p>
<p>I thought people go to u of michigan to join a frat and wear oversized michigan basketball shorts .
joking aside an lac is better for most people end of argument!</p>
<p>haverford,kenyon, college of wooster,hendrix and
muhlenberg are awesome</p>
<p>For either, look at the gen ed requirements. Most LACs, and some universities, have the stated purpose of giving the student a “well rounded” education. Which is great, if your brain is realtively well rounded. If, however, you are like my sister (97th percentile in Verbal, 3rd percentile in Math), the last thing you need is an LAC that will require 9 hours of math and 12 hours of lab science, no matter what your major.</p>
<p>To be fair, this is a very subjective question. Some people just like LACs. Typically, the national universities are more well known and will often open doors, but the top 25-30 LACs are probably just as good as any of the top 50 national universities.</p>