Why does UChicago lack Advanced Undergraduate degree programs?

JHS
Wed, 21 Aug 2013 11:38:47 +0000

When people talk about a “liberal arts education,” that is generally understood to be mutually exclusive with things like nursing, engineering, accountancy, actuarial, and business degrees. It’s not entirely – Swarthmore has an engineering program that works in a liberal-arts frame, but that’s the exception that proves the rule, and it’s a very small program.

Chicago is very, very committed to a liberal arts framework for undergraduate education (as are most elite institutions, although many of them fudge that with their engineering programs). That is not going to change anytime soon. It would be a huge change in Chicago’s brand – you might as well ask why Chik-Fil-A doesn’t serve cheeseburgers. It doesn’t because if it did it would be a totally different institution.

So, if what you want is a totally different institution, you need to look elsewhere.