Liberal Arts Colleges Forced To Evolve With Market

ADRIAN, Mich. — They're the places you think of when you think of "college" – leafy campuses, small classes, small towns. Liberal arts colleges are where students ponder life's big questions, and learn to think en route to successful careers and richer lives, if not always to the best-paying first jobs.
But today's increasingly career-focused students mostly aren't buying the idea that a liberal arts education is good value, and many small liberal arts colleges are struggling. The survivors are shedding their liberal arts identity, if not the label. A study published earlier this year found that of 212 such institutions identified in 1990, only 130 still meet the criteria of a "true liberal arts college." Most that fell off the list remained in business, but had shifted toward a pre-professional curriculum.
These distinctively American institutions – educating at most 2 percent of college students but punching far above their weight in accomplished graduates – can't turn back the clock. Read more...