A liberal arts college or liberal arts institution of higher education is a college with an emphasis on undergraduate study in the liberal arts of humanities and science. Such colleges aim to impart a broad general knowledge and develop general intellectual capacities, in contrast to a professional or vocational curriculum. Students in a liberal arts college generally major in a particular discipline while receiving exposure to a wide range of academic subjects. Although it draws on European antecedents, the liberal arts college is strongly associated with American higher education, and most liberal arts colleges around the world draw explicitly on the American model.
There is no formal definition of a liberal arts college, but the U.S. News & World Report defines them as schools that "emphasize undergraduate education and award at least half of their degrees in the liberal arts fields of study". Other researchers have adopted similar definitions.
Although many liberal arts colleges are exclusively undergraduate, some also offer graduate programs that lead to a master's degree or doctoral degree in subjects such as English, general biology, fine arts, and law. Similarly, the term "liberal arts college" most commonly refers to an independent institution with a specialty in non-vocational coursework. It may also sometimes refer to a university college within or affiliated with a larger university. Most liberal arts colleges outside the United States follow this model. In the US, many "global" universities have rebranded their liberal arts colleges as arts and social sciences, arts and sciences, and humanities colleges or created individual and separate schools for traditional liberal arts disciplines.
Distinguishing characteristics
Liberal arts colleges are distinguished from other types of higher education chiefly by their generalist curricula and small size. These attributes have various secondary effects in terms of administration as well as student experience. For example, class size is usually much lower at liberal arts colleges than at universities, and faculty at liberal arts colleges typically focus on teaching more than research.
From a student perspective, a liberal arts college typically differs from other forms of higher education in the following areas: higher overall student satisfaction, a general feeling that professors take a personal interest in the student's education, and perception of encouragement to participate in discussion. Many students select liberal arts colleges with precisely this sense of personal connection in mind.
From an administrative standpoint, the small size of liberal arts colleges contributes to their cohesion and ability to survive through difficult times. Job satisfaction is also typically higher in liberal arts colleges, for both faculty and staff. The smaller size also makes it feasible for liberal arts colleges to adopt relatively experimental or divergent approaches, such as the Great Books curriculum at St. John's or Shimer, or the radically interdisciplinary curriculum of Marlboro. In addition, top liberal arts colleges are predominantly residential.
The distinctiveness of these attributes is somewhat eroded by the tendency of universities to adopt aspects of the liberal arts college, and vice versa. For example, several American universities, including the University of California campuses in Santa Cruz and San Diego, developed a cluster colleges model in which small liberal-arts-college-like units within a larger university form a "honeycomb of residential colleges". In addition, some universities have maintained a sub-unit that preserves many aspects of the liberal arts college, such as Columbia College within Columbia University.
Liberal arts colleges themselves sometimes cluster to offer greater curricular breadth or share other resources (for instance Colgate University and Hamilton College in New York allow cross enrollment). Liberal arts colleges typically require students to take classes from a variety of disciplines and to engage with a range of ideas and ways of thinking about the world. Compared to a liberal arts school, a standard university is typically more direct in its approach to teaching, following a set path for courses. Liberal arts students have a more flexible and well-rounded experience.
Liberal arts and liberal arts college In academia, liberal arts generally refer to subjects or skills that aim to provide general knowledge and comprise the arts, humanities, general sciences, and social sciences (rather than professional or technical skills). Most liberal arts colleges, however, also offer courses in subjects that are not traditionally considered part of the liberal arts, such as computer science.
Globally
Liberal arts colleges are found in all parts of the world. Notwithstanding the European origins of the concept of liberal arts education, today the term is largely associated with the United States, and most self-identified liberal arts colleges worldwide are built on the American model. The Global Liberal Arts Alliance, which incorporates institutions on five continents, refers to itself as "an international, multilateral partnership of American style liberal arts institutions".
In 2009, liberal arts colleges from around the world formed the Global Liberal Arts Alliance, an international consortium and "matching service" to help liberal arts colleges in different countries deal with their shared problems.
The U.S. News & World Report no longer provides rankings for liberal arts colleges at "global" universities. These colleges are members of the top 2,000 universities that the U.S. News & World Report ranks around the world.
In North America
The liberal arts college model took root in the United States in the 19th century, as institutions spread that followed the model of early schools like Harvard, Yale, and Dartmouth, although none of these early American schools are regarded as liberal arts colleges today. These colleges served as a means of spreading a basically European cultural model across the new country. The model proliferated in the 19th century; some 212 small liberal arts colleges were established between 1850 and 1899. As of 1987, there were about 540 liberal arts colleges in the United States.
The oldest liberal arts college in America is considered to be Washington College, the first college chartered after American independence. Other prominent examples in the United States include the so-called Little Ivy colleges in New England, the surviving predominantly female Seven Sisters colleges along the northeastern seaboard, the Claremont Colleges in Southern California, and the Ohio Five, but similar institutions are found all over the country.
The Maple League in Canada is a consortium of four universities – Acadia, Bishop's, Mount Allison and St. Francis Xavier – who together form an alliance of small, rural, undergraduate liberal arts education institutions with Francophone heritage and a commitment to truth and reconciliation with indigenous communities.
Most liberal arts colleges are private institutions, but a handful of public liberal arts schools exist (such as the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia).
According to U.S. News & World Report, the top ten ranked Liberal Arts Colleges in America for 2022 were: Williams College, Amherst College, Swarthmore College, Pomona College, Wellesley College, Bowdoin College, United States Naval Academy, Claremont McKenna College, Carleton College, and Middlebury College, based on institutional stats and proprietary questionnaires .
Liberal arts colleges in Canada include Acadia University, Bishop's University, Glendon College of York University, Mount Allison University, St. Francis Xavier University, St. Thomas University, Trent University, and the University of King's College.
In South America
The leading organization is the National Institute of Educators of Liberal Arts and Artistic Education "Instituto Nacional Superior del Profesorado en Artes" located in Buenos Aires, Argentina, initially created in 1923 by Ernesto de la Cárcova, under the name "Escuela Nacional Superior de Bellas Artes", the original school of Liberal Arts building became the Ernesto de la Cárcova Museum. From 1983 to 2013 the institute was part of the IUNA National University Institute for the Arts, and since 2014, the Ruanova Institute of Performing Arts and Higher Education, named after Maria Ruanova, became part of the UNA Universidad Nacional de las Artes, (UNA) National University of the Arts
In Europe
With the exception of pioneering institutions such as Franklin University Switzerland, established as a Europe-based, US-style liberal arts college in 1969, Saint Louis University Madrid Campus, established in 1967, and Richmond, The American International University in London, established in 1972 only recently have efforts been made to import the American liberal arts college model to Europe.
In the Netherlands, universities have opened constituent liberal arts colleges under the terminology "university college" since the late 1990s. This trend was spearheaded by Dutch sociologist Hans Adriaansens, who was "frustrated with the large-scale climate of university education in the Netherlands". Dutch university colleges of this kind include Leiden University College The Hague, University College Utrecht, University College Maastricht, Amsterdam University College, University College Roosevelt, Erasmus University College, University College Groningen and University College Tilburg.
Other liberal arts colleges in continental Europe include The American University of Paris, Bratislava International School of Liberal Arts in Slovakia, Jacobs University Bremen, Bard College Berlin, the Leuphana University of Lüneburg with their Bachelor program Studium Individuale and the University College Freiburg in Germany. Bard College Berlin was founded in Berlin in 1999 as the European College of Liberal Arts, and in 2009 it introduced a 4-year Bachelor of Arts program in Value Studies taught in English and leading to an interdisciplinary degree in the humanities. In the Czech Republic, the Faculty of Humanities, Charles University, a part of Charles University started providing liberal arts education in 1994 as the Institute for Liberal Education and gained full academic autonomy in 2000.