<p>I believe that, if given the choice, most folks would prefer to have smaller classes than not. From time to time, a size disadvantage can be overcome with a skilled professor, but a larger class size will inhibit, if not make impossible, exchanges among students. If you believe that interaction with a high quality set of student peers is valuable, then you will probably prefer the smaller class sizes.</p>
<p>For the record, here are the colleges in the USNWR Top 30 National Universities and I have compared them to the USNWR Top 20 LACs. The differences are not as stark as some might think and there are many top private universities that are able to combine both great research reputations and smaller class sizes. </p>
<p>% of classes under 20 students , % of classes over 50 students , College</p>
<p>76% , 8% , Yale
75% , 8% , Caltech
74% , 8% , U Penn
74% , 8% , Northwestern
73% , 10% , Stanford
73% , 6% , Duke
73% , 9% , Wash U
72% , 10% , Princeton
72% , 4% , U Chicago
72% , 5% , Tufts
71% , 9% , Columbia
69% , 13% , Harvard
68% , 11% , Brown
67% , 6% , Vanderbilt
66% , 11% , Johns Hopkins
66% , 6% , Emory
66% , 9% , Carnegie Mellon
64% , 8% , Dartmouth
62% , 9% , Rice
62% , 12% , USC
61% , 14% , MIT
61% , 14% , UC Berkeley
60% , 16% , Cornell
58% , 7% , Georgetown
57% , 2% , Wake Forest
55% , 11% , Notre Dame
54% , 20% , UCLA
49% , 15% , U Virginia
47% , 11% , U North Carolina
45% , 17% , U Michigan</p>
<p>% of classes under 20 students , % of classes over 50 students , College</p>
<p>79% , 0% , Claremont McK
77% , 0% , Hamilton
76% , 2% , Swarthmore
75% , 3% , Williams
75% , 2% , Haverford
73% , 1% , Pomona
72% , 0% , Davidson
71% , 3% , Oberlin
70% , 4% , Middlebury
70% , 5% , Smith
69% , 1% , Vassar
68% , 4% , Amherst
68% , 1% , W&L
66% , 0% , Grinnell
64% , 1% , Wellesley
64% , 1% , Carleton
64% , 3% , Bowdoin
64% , 5% , Wesleyan
63% , 2% , Colgate
62% , 5% , Harvey Mudd
53% , 0% , US Naval Acad</p>