<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>