How the Liberal Arts College Affects Students

Abstract

The question of educational efficacy is probably more important to the private liberal arts college than to any other type of institution. Indeed, the fact that so many of these institutions have been able to survive and even prosper during several decades of massive expansion of low-cost public higher education can only be attributed to the fact that many parents and students believe they offer special educational benefits not likely to be found either in the more prestigious private universities or in the various types of public institutions with whom they often compete for students. How justified are these beliefs? The short answer to this question is that residential liberal arts colleges in general, and highly selective liberal arts col leges in particular, produce a pattern of consistently positive student outcomes not found in any other type of American higher-education institution. Moreover, the selective liberal arts colleges, more than any other type of institution, have managed not only to effect a reasonable balance between undergraduate teaching and scholarly research, but also to incorporate a wide range of exemplary educational practices in their educational programs. In this essay I will review some of the empirical evidence concerning these unique educational benefits and then discuss the implications of this research for the larger higher-education system. However, in order to make sense out of this rather