Lots to Write Here About the Value of an Education at a Small Liberal Arts College...

Hi Everyone,


I’d been tentatively planning to hold an informal workshop tonight at school called something like “Four-Year College Choices for Not-So-Perfect Students,” and then realized it would be following much too closely on the heels of last week’s “Intro to College Choice” night. I don’t want to cause burnout so early in the game here (I do want all of you to want to come back!), so it seems to me I can pretty effectively introduce this information right here in this blog. But when I sat down this morning to write it, I then concluded that one first needs to have a primer (of sorts) regarding liberal arts colleges and the kind of education they provide, prior to my starting in on opportunities for B/C students. That said, let’s back up for a just a bit here and cover some of the info we presented in last week’s “Intro to College Choice” workshop…and then some. After it sits with you for a few days, I will post some more writing that presents viable colleges for B/C students – how’s that?

Let me just say this – If you want to be aware of the very best writing out there concerning liberal arts colleges, it exists within two books written by the savvy education consultant/writer Loren Pope. These two books are called “Colleges That Change Lives” and “Looking Beyond the Ivy League.” The most popular one – “Colleges That Change Lives” – is probably responsible for changing the way college counselors look at the college-going landscape and how it works in order to best serve our students. There is now actually a small consortium of colleges that are covered by Pope in this book who go out on tour together each year, bouncing off the buzz created over the last 10 years by this book’s release. So I will openly admit to being a fan and follower of Pope’s writing, and much of what I’m about to say here comes straight from his books. After all, I doubt that I can do any better, because he’s certainly done a superb job of thinking things through for us. Also, both books are on the shelf of our very own College Counseling library shelf, waiting for your perusal.

So here are some of my favorite passages (with some liberties taken) from Pope’s writings, all about small liberal arts colleges:

1. These schools share two essential elements: a familial sense of communal enterprise that gets students heavily involved in cooperative rather than competitive learning; and a faculty of scholars devoted to helping young people develop their powers, mentors who often become their valued friends.

2. These are the kinds of professors who make the difference because they put the focus on the student….in (large) universities, professors are not usually part of a community or interested in their students’ projects. They do little, if any, teaching, leaving that chore to grad assistants and part-time faculty. In short, the (large) university cheats the undergraduate. There is no other word for it. Education should include dialogue and involvement, not be just a monologue to the passive ears of note takers busy because what they’re hearing might be on the exam. To an alarmingly large number of large-university professors, undergraduate students are (treated as a) by-product or a nuisance and are second-class citizens, with the activities associated with research, publishing, consulting and graduate teaching in first position. Not true at small liberal arts colleges, usually populated with anywhere from 450 to 2,000 students. They truly are the whole show on their campuses – everything there exists for their benefit.

3. (Liberal arts colleges) develop people who can land on their feet – whether they are strong, intellectual students or those needing tender loving care – because they encourage a strong sense of community and interaction among students and teachers. Students find that their social lives are just so much better on small campuses, even if they’re located in remote places. Think about it. Being one of too many is usually an alienating experience and not an empowering one. And going to school in a large, expensive city can turn out to be quite frustrating. My own son went to NYU Tisch, partially because he imagined leading a rousingly urbane weekend life. But here’s the question -- Who will pay for your child to have this imagined experience? NYC is probably the most expensive city in the world, so just how many Broadway show and nightclub tickets –as well as pricey restaurants -- do you expect your student will actually be able to buy? In many of our cases, the remote small college campus is easier to access and friendlier to our bank accounts.

4. A broad-based liberal arts-centered curriculum is usually the best choice for an undergraduate student, rather than one that is pre-professional – because just about everyone in college will in ten years or less be working at jobs that don’t yet exist…thus (liberal arts colleges) are eager to help you pay the bill with all the financial aid for which you qualify on the standard forms. In other words, don’t feel limited by finances to the nearest or cheapest college. If the family income is really that low, you will qualify for financial aid and it literally may be cheaper to go away to an expensive private college than live at home and go to a public one! More than one financial aid officer has said too many parents just assume they’re not eligible for aid and don’t ask. Merit aid is there as well as need-based aid.

5. We often hear about east-coast college superiority – but the truth is that student bodies in many Midwestern colleges are more cosmopolitan and diversified than in many Eastern ones. No college has more diversity than Oberlin, which is in Ohio. About 29% of Beloit’s (in Wisconsin) and Grinnell’s (in Iowa) students are Jewish, which bespeaks two things about a school outside the East: high quality and diversity. At Earlham College (in Indiana), a Quaker school, over half the students come from more than five hundred miles away, and some years the freshman class has more Jewish students than Quakers, as well as more Catholics or Methodists.

6. Parents just keep on believing all of the myths about large name-brand universities, based on little more than hearsay from their friends and the media – and then that flawed belief system is passed along to their children. Even though college is probably the second-largest investment parents will make in a lifetime (just behind a home), they continually base college selection for their children on faulty or no reasoning other than a cattle mentality. I love what Loren Pope says about this situation: No one would pick a wife or a husband or even buy a house or a car with so little information.

7. Here are some truths for you to consider: Two thirds of the college students change their career plans at least once, often twice, in those four years. Most grads change jobs at least once in the first five years after college, even on the graduate level. Only 30% of those who start in engineering graduate, chiefly because it does demand an early commitment. Two thirds of the administrators in all business fields did not major in that field. The liberal arts graduate quite often has more trouble finding her first job than does the engineer, accountant, or other specialist. But she winds up better satisfied and – because she has learned to think, to adapt, and to communicate – being the specialist’s boss. So, making decisions aimed at a first job is like assuming the first-inning score is going to be the final one. That kind of thinking can damage peoples’ lives.

8. More quick advice: Don’t rule out a college because you don’t like its particular state. Similarly, cast off home-state shackles in reaching your decision. A lot of parents believe that if they put their son or daughter in a closer-to-home location, they’ll come home more often. Nothing in the research shows that belief to be true. They’re building their social, academic and even professional lives at on that campus where they attend school, not in their home backyards. They’re growing up and separating, the same as you did way back when.

9. Pick a school because you like its ethos, its atmosphere, what it stands for, because it fits you (your student), not because you’ve heard it has a good department in the subject you (your student) plan to major in. You may well change you major; most people do.

10. With Loren Pope’s excellent writing at hand, what I’m hoping to do here is “to free parents and their sons and daughters from the worship of the false gods of name and size and prestige and help them identify the real virtues of mental and moral growth, so they can make their most important investment one that will give a lifetime of satisfaction.”

So just to get you started – following are some good liberal arts colleges for you to Google and learn about. It’s a list that doesn’t even scratch the surface, but it contains excellent small colleges from all over the U.S., at all ability/selectivity levels. All have aggressive need-based aid and merit-based financial help to offer. And in several days – I’ll cover the ones that are especially good for B/C students to consider.

Short list: Kenyon College, Earlham College, Whittier College, Pitzer College, St. Mary’s College of California, Occidental College, Colorado College, Cornell College (the one in Iowa, not the big university in NY), Knox College, St. John’s College (my favorite), Whitman College, Lake Forest College, Goucher College, Juniata College, Hampshire College, Bard College, McDaniel College, Guilford College, St. Andrews Prebyterian College (great for those with learning disabilities), Evergreen State College, Reed College, College of Wooster (another one of my favorites), Kalamazoo College, Hiram College, Beloit College, Ripon College, Emory and Henry College.

Thanks for Reading,

Anne