I think in most areas - LACs aren’t as known a commonly..
In 1998, at Williams, there were 4,528 applicants and 1,196 acceptances. That’s 26% accepted.
In 2024, 15,411 applied - nearly 4x as many. 1,272 accepted or 8.3%.
In 2001, Bowdoin had 4,536 applicants or 24% accepted. Last year, 13,257 apps and 946 accepted. That’s 7.1%.
So you have several times the multiple of apps as 20+ years ago - and while apps went up nearfour fold at Williams, the # of acceptances is up less than 7%..
At Bowdoin, apps have tripled while acceptances are actually down a few hundred.
Guess I’m not following your story.
But I highly doubt in any given area that LACs are popular overall - they’re a small portion of the overall educational system. The average person may not even know of this as a possible alternative.
Edit - I just read @momofboiler1 similar type comment as I just read the entire thread. Sorry about that.
One can tell the way colleges are transitioning cutting the liberal arts and going to more pre professional, in-demand majors - that can’t be a help to LACs and even they’ve done some of this.
So that’s likely part.
And public Honors colleges and LACs at a much lower cost are probably another reason.
But - it seems to me apps are way up, acceptance rates are way down - at the tippy top.
I suppose this is the kind of discussion that can and will go in circles - there’s likely a lot of truth in what everyone will say. And even if not, if it’s your belief, than it’s your belief - and that’s ok too.
This is not just a “today’s students” thing. I transferred from a LAC to a larger university in my junior year 40 years ago. The LAC did not have enough depth in the field I had become interested in, and also started to seem very small and isolated after two years there.
At my LAC at that time, there was a lot of the usual LAC rhetoric about “teaching is better here than at a large university because there are small classes and teachers more focused on undergrads,” so I expected a decline in teaching quality at the larger university with TAs and such. Well, in reality it turned out that I had both good and bad teachers at each institution. Some of the TAs at the bigger school were fantastic, and it was great to get to know graduate students in my field.
Anyway, LACs are great for some students and not so great for others… and it was that way 40 years ago, too.
An academically strong student who does not think very hard about what they want in a university might nonetheless still apply to Harvard or Stanford “just to see if they get in”. In contrast, a student who applies to Amherst College or Bowdoin College probably has at least thought about what they want in a college or university. Also, Harvard and Stanford probably have your major, pretty much regardless of what it may be (yes I know there are a few exceptions).
Also, small LACs do often lack some specific majors, such as engineering.
And there are quite a few selective LACs, which may reduce the number of applicants to any one specific college.
That being said, we did see some significant interest in LACs or other small schools among our daughters and their friends. One daughter attended a smaller school (but in Canada where they do not use the term “Liberal Arts College”) and both daughters had friends who went to LACs.
I think that this is perfect. There are tradeoffs. Nowhere is perfect for everyone.
Some LACs might suffer from not being well known. As an example, I just googled “LACs with cows” and found out about Sterling College. To be honest if my oldest had known about this school she might have ended up there, but we did not know that it existed until right now (way too late for us). I do not think that this “not well known” issue applies to the highly ranked LACs.
But I do not think that there is anything new here. Small schools were probably less well known way back when I was applying to university. If anything the Internet may have helped selective LACs to be better known than they were 30 or 40 years ago.
Me too…except I transferred after one year. Similar reason…I decided to switch majors and the LAC didn’t have anything that interested me, but the large U had tons of options.
But more current events…our older kid graduated from a university with about 25,000 undergrads. Our second kid graduated from a college with about 5000 undergrads.
They both got excellent educations at their colleges.
I don’t have the numbers on hand to back this up, and I’m not going to try to dig them up, but my sense is that even the most selective LACs have long had higher acceptance rates than the most selective universities. I seem to recall a time (decades ago) when acceptance rates at top universities were in the high teens/low 20s and acceptance rates at comparably ranked LACs were in the mid/high 20s. Whether or not those numbers are exactly right, the point is that you have to compare trajectories in acceptance rates rather than absolute numbers. When you do that, it’s hard to argue that LACs have declined at all. As with many universities, LACs that used to be safeties are now targets, LACs that used to be targets are now reaches, and LACS that have always been reaches are now lottery schools.
To the extent that LACs are slightly easier admits than comparable universities, you have to chalk it up to name recognition, which is always higher for larger schools, along with shifting demands favoring fields like business and engineering among new students. And any given LAC is a fit for fewer students. Universities can please a wider spectrum of students, because they offer more niches. But even taking those factors into account, I don’t see declining interest in LACs across the board, though I do grant you that some of the least well-known among them are at higher than average risk of closure. There are lots of factors contributing to that trend, including demographic shifts and rising costs in higher ed that have made some schools extremely vulnerable.
I say all of this as a the parent of one kid who is very happy with her LAC, and another (a senior in HS) who is applying almost exclusively to LACs.
Most universities are indeed becoming more “selective”, but that is also (not sure how much) in part due to students applying to more universities, and being able to do so more easily via the Common App
I will say this - at my extremely large Big Ten state flagship, and at most peer universities, the majority of classes are not taught my TAs any more.
Most departments run on a twice-a-week model where Professors teach for 1hr 15 mins each. TAs are there only for remedial sessions (especially Orgo/Calc etc.) or, at upper-level courses, they basically just grade and do admin work.
The only classes with Friday sessions are the 4-credit classes (Calc, STEM Labs), and once you get past your basic Gen Eds you will only take classes with professors. In my past 2 years as a sophomore and junior, I’ve never taken a single class with more than 50 kids or that was taught by a TA.
Regarding your other comments (which I think were in response to the thread, not me), I suspect that the reason fewer classes are taught by TAs at some universities is that they are accepting far fewer graduate students. With less funding to hand out and a terrible academic job market, most programs that I know of have slashed grad admissions, at least for Ph.D. programs. But even 35 years ago at my university, I had very few classes taught by grad students – I think only one was, and that’s because the department’s graduate program offered a fellowship that allowed its advanced Ph.D. students to design their own seminars. In my Ph.D. program (25 years ago or so), the only grad students who taught their own classes were either filling in for a professor on leave or had a similar teaching fellowship (given to only two students per year). At both universities, decades apart, the teaching responsibilities for graduate TAs were mostly limited to discussion sections.
Higher ed is going through pervasive restructuring. Part of that is a move in enrollments up the hierarchy to larger universities. And part of it is a shift to preprofessional programs. I don’t have systematic data that would show that SLACs as a whole are losing some of their luster in that process, but many are struggling and it wouldn’t surprise me if they are going to face ongoing challenges in new higher ed landscape.
Acceptance rates at the most rejective SLACs don’t tell the whole story of the wider sector. I think we’d probably need to consider discounting, endowment spending, etc. For example, one of my kids goes to a rejective SLAC where over 50% of the operational budget is from endowment.
None of that means that SLACs aren’t still a great option for many students and I agree with people who suggest that fit is the way that students should approach the college question and process.
I was prepared to give a serious reply to the original question; I was going to cite the rise of the German model of the university in the late-19th century; the surge of scientific research (especially, defense spending) following the Soviet Union’s launch of Sputnik in the mid-1950s. And finally, the rise of the Upper Middle Class in the U.S. and a brand-new market for what had formerly been the realm of America’s gentry. That is, until the discussion devolved into an argument about acceptance rates. I mean, really? Is that what this is all about. Like rejecting 97% of everyone who wants to attend your college is some sort of badge of honor? The differential is easy to explain: fully half of all the SLACs I can think of are located in the snowiest parts of the country. You really, really have to look for them or at least be in a certain information loop in order to know anything about them. They are the last places on earth anyone is going to think, “Oh, crap! Let me just toss in an app to Carleton and see what happens.“ So, it is all the more remarkable, to my mind, that they continue to overlap some of the best known institutions in the country; their frosh retention rates are pretty darned good for such “lackluster“ colleges.
From talking to them. They would tell me they would have a prof in a big lecture but most of the teaching was by TAs of fair quality. OTOH I had professors who were deeply invested in teaching and learning. Again, this was just my experience and that of my friends, not saying this is universal.
Everybody chill. I am sorry this post triggered so many. I agree with what everyone is saying. There are great big and small schools, you can get great teaching and experiences at both, and fit is the most important. I guess the observation that, locally, in my area, the SLACs don’t seem to be terribly popular anymore does not reflect what others are seeing. Put your arrows away!
The title of your post asks “when” the SLAC’s lost their luster, not “whether.” You take it as a given, you’re not asking for opinions as to whether or not it is true.
OP- I do think there are regional differences and so perhaps that’s what you are picking up on. I have colleagues in the Southwest for example, and for kids who are interested in going out of state, it’s Stanford, U Chicago, etc. If the kid can’t into one of those- it’s either the flagship or another state U. Nothing wrong with that- but their guidance counselors aren’t tuned into “If you love foreign languages you should take a look at Middlebury” or “Kenyon and Sarah Lawrence may have the creative writing program you are looking for”.
But here in the Northeast- I’d describe the “luster” as quite bright.