Liberal Arts Colleges vs. Research Universities

What sort of an education do you want?

For many students, the first decision that they’ll have to make when applying to college is this: do they want to go to a small liberal arts college or a large research university? When students are high school juniors or even sophomores, and barely know anything about colleges and universities, this choice can seem overwhelming. Fear not. This blog is here to simplify the process for students and families just starting to look into college.

What’s the big difference?

The phrases “research university” and “liberal arts college” get thrown around a lot – by just about every college admissions blog that you read, every representative with whom you have even the shortest conversation, and even the colleges’ websites themselves. What’s it all mean?

The main difference lies in the schools’ goals – and, extrapolated from this, their approach to teaching. Some of the key differences are summarized in the table below:

Liberal arts colleges	Research universities
A liberal arts college is defined mainly by the width of its focus. It does not have a set vocational focus. Rather, the goal of these universities is to expose undergraduate students to a wide array of academic pursuits.	The goal of research universities is (as the name might suggest) is the research that the professors and grad students do. Undergraduates can help, and gain valuable research experience if they plan to move on to grad school.
Liberal arts colleges generally have:  • Smaller classes   • More faculty per chunk of student body (a greater faculty:student ratio)  • Classes are mostly all led by professors (without grad student aid)	Research universities generally have: • Larger classes • More students per faculty (a smaller faculty:student ratio) • A wide mix of undergrads, grad students, and professors team up to teach classes, often with many supplemental sections or labs

What are the advantages of a liberal arts college?

For students looking for the “traditional” college experience, where fellow pupils sit in dimly lit libraries hunched over books while the wind howls outside, learning six ancient languages and memorizing the history of Rome… this is certainly possible in one of these schools. But students can have more. And they will have more. Liberal arts colleges encourage curiosity. They encourage interdisciplinary studies – or paths that combine knowledge from various fields.

The only limits of the schools are their smaller size… but it’s that same smaller size that means that the undergraduates will develop very close bonds with your faculty. Professors will know their students by name. Students will get to know a lot of their classmates. They’ll end up taking a lot of the same classes as their classmates… even ones that they thought they would never take – and they might end up loving them.

The (usual) lack of graduate students at these schools means that the focus of the professors is entirely on their undergraduates: nurturing them and building them into full-fledged, multifaceted individuals ready to tackle the complexities of the contemporary world. Students won’t just discover and pursue a single interest. They will find several.

What are the advantages of a research university?

On the other hand, you have dazzling, world-renowned research universities. The main advantage of these is that they are where things happen. These are where new discoveries are made. These are where the faculty will go out and win Nobel prizes and the like – the same faculty who will be recording students’ lectures.

Research universities allow students to participate (and gain experience in) potentially groundbreaking research. The focus of labs may be on the graduate students and postdocs, but undergraduates have a place. Undergraduates help to run the machinery that enables this spectacular research to happen. It’s invaluable for students looking to gain experience for graduate school.

Finally, after you’ve gone and got your diploma, what next? It’s important to also consider the college’s alumni network. At a research university, this is generally wide, international, and diverse. Alumni networks in research universities are built by working professionals and are generally well-funded. In short, the university won’t just give students a leg up while they’re there. Graduates will continue to reap the benefits well into their careers.

So… it’s the humanities vs. engineering?

No. It is not just the humanities versus engineering.

Both research universities and liberal arts colleges have a lot of perks. In the end, a student’s choice between one or the other should have to do with that student’s particular preference: small school where students know many of their classmates by name, or large school with a dazzling potential, but where teaching might be more at a distance. (You will, however, have seminars and graduate-student-led sections at research universities, and the ability to forge close ties there.)

For some students who are dead-set on a certain career path, the choice of liberal arts colleges versus research universities might seem obvious. However, this is not actually the case. It ends up being about “fit”: which school (or school type) meshes best with an individual student’s learning preferences and preferred learning environment. Liberal arts colleges are not made only for students who want to spend every waking hour reading Shakespeare in the school library, and research universities are not made only for future doctors and scientists.

For scientists and engineers

To some, it sounds crazy to study engineering at a liberal arts college. However, liberal arts colleges aren’t narrow or restricted in what they offer. This means that they have programs in the physical sciences. They have everything.

There are various reasons why learning the sciences at a liberal arts college is ideal. There are smaller classes – so students really get to know their professors (who may go on to help them in their pursuit of a career). There’s less competition, so students avoid the cutthroat attitude that pervades so many large schools. Lastly, there are more opportunities overall, which means that students will truly graduate to be well-rounded scientists or doctors, who may relate better to the other people on their team because they’ll have a broader understanding that encompasses more than just one thing.

For the humanities students

Liberal arts colleges aren’t necessarily the only place for humanities majors; research universities would be pretty boring places if they were made up of 100% STEM students, like computer science or biology majors. Here’s why it makes sense to study the humanities at a research university.

First of all, students have access to top faculty and state-of-the-art facilities. This gives them ways to broaden and intersect their interests with groundbreaking research. Some great examples are the “digital humanities” programs at Stanford and MIT. And then, because research universities are so big, it’s quite possible for a humanities undergrad to minor or double-major in the sciences. Imagine a student who gets a degree from MIT in history with a minor in robotics. They can go on (for example) to join a team of oceanographers who are using robots to map the ocean floor and understand paleoclimates – combining both disciplines.

Can a student have both?

For students who are into the sciences, but the smaller setting of a liberal arts college really appeals to them… fortunately, there’s some very good news. Enter the 3-2 programs.

In these, students enroll in a liberal arts college that has partnered with another school – probably a research university. They spend the first three years gaining a wide basis of knowledge in the first three years. Then they move to that other school to narrow their focus on, say, engineering. They graduate not just with a B.S. but with a master’s.

“3-2” engineering programs offer a perfect blend of both school styles and both environments. The only downside is that they’re very selective – because incoming students are earning, in addition to admission to a liberal arts college, guaranteed admission to a master’s program in engineering at a top research university (as long as their GPA remains above par).

If this sounds like something that you’d like, but you’d like some help getting into them, or if you’d just like some guidance on which schools might be the best fit for your case, please schedule a free consultation to see if we can help you.