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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Kenyon College would be an outstanding two year college affiliated with a major National University as Emory's Oxford (Oxford, Georgia) campus is to Emory University's main campus in Decatur/Atlanta.

If Kenyon College was a feeder into an elite National University such as Dartmouth College, Washington University in St. Louis, or another Top 15 National University, I suspect that it would attract many more highly qualified applicants as a first choice school that would ease the transition from high school / prep school to a university.[/quote]

That is a bit condescending towards Kenyon and sort of an antiquated unrealistic idea. The Dartmouths or Wash U’s get a slightly stronger average academic profile in terms of their average student and have broader offerings by virtue of their size but the quality of education one receives is unlikely all that different. [/quote]

The quoted poster wrote: "This is a bit condescending towards Kenyon and sort of an antiquated unrealistic idea."

This is precisely the type of attitude that I experienced. A condescending and conclusory remark without any substance. You represent Kenyon well. [/quote]

I don’t represent Kenyon at all but I also don’t see it as some kind of a junior college. It’s a 200 year old 4 year institution that has produced many successful graduates. [/quote]

It is clear that you do not "represent Kenyon at all" because you wrote a response without a personal attack & made strong points.

The educational environment is changing. Soon the number of US high school graduates will be declining. Competition for students will increase.

New courses of study will need to be implemented. Affiliating with a major National University will make Kenyon College attractive to a larger number of students.

Many LACs affiliate with National Universities for 3 + 2 programs in engineering. As technology continues to grow, substantial investments will need to be made by institutions of higher education in order to serve the needs of society & in order to meet potential students and future employers demands. Except for a few with exceptionally large endowments, small LACs are ill equipped to do so.

Kenyon College could be the premier two year college in the nation while retaining its current strengths, but offering a wider variety of options and opportunities to its clients.

If you prefer to remain static, then ask Borders Bookstores how that works out. [/quote]

I agree many small colleges face some kind of existential risk, perhaps more because of the affordability issue than demographics which are often overstated as a problem (while we are at peak levels of high school grads now the expected decline is only around 10 pct in the decades ahead).

But I don’t see leading LACS as currently failing in their educational mission, even in the hard sciences. There is nothing inherently broken in the model of delivering undergraduate education in a smaller and more personalized setting. Perhaps there is room for creative partnerships with large research universities, similar to study abroad. Students of small colleges may benefit from a semester or two spent at a larger school and vice versa.

LACs today are more selective than ever, which means they have more potential customers than ever. Part of this has to do with what we read on these pages - extremely well endowed major universities are subsidizing many more students from low income backgrounds than they used to. These schools used to rely heavily on tuition paying upper middle class students but such students are increasingly being iced out of these schools and forced to find alternatives. Many students find smaller liberal arts colleges viable substitutes for the midsized private universities they might have otherwise attended to pursue a similar course of study. With so many good students flowing into the LAC population who in a prior generation may have had their sights on Ivy League schools and similar, the overall caliber of the student body of these LACs has become much higher making them even more desirable environments.

In short, I see these colleges as thriving at the moment and providing a valuable service for students interested in an intensive top notch educational experience. The demographic shift is a headwind but these schools are not on the verge of collapse by any means. It is important to emphasize the total capacity of the LAC market is quite small. The University of Michigan alone has over 30k undergraduates- it is the size of 15-20 LACs. So the entire pool of selective LACs out there only represents a small fraction of the higher Ed market- collectively the size of a few large state schools. LACs are a tiny percentage of the overall higher Ed market and with a differentiated offering that many customers seem to value highly, they should be able to remain relevant while they continue to innovate and get better.

Perhaps the biggest challenge facing all of higher ed though is cost. Schools that offer merit aid to top upper middle class students who don’t qualify for financial aid will do well as total annual cost of attendance barrels towards the 100k mark. The very affluent will pay up for the best product but the less affluent will increasingly be sensitive to relative price as they already are. [/quote]

Thank you for your response.

In addition to changing demographics, I think that the ending statement of your fourth paragraph ("...they [LACs] should be able to remain relevant while they continue to innovate and get better.") deserves particular attention.

Change and innovation can be--and usually is--expensive. Remaining relevant is a key issue. Schools of Journalism have had to change to remain relevant over the past decade or so; writing programs and English majors may soon face similar challenges in light of artificial intelligence (AI) programs and demands for more focus on STEM training.

I do agree with your statement: "Perhaps there is room for creative partnerships with large universities...." I can envision an LAC such as Kenyon College partnering with one or two large universities which have resources such as research facilities, teaching hospitals, programs, and professors not available at almost all LACs.

Cost is relative. A significant and growing number appear to view an LAC education as a luxury. This perspective is supported by the high percentage of LAC graduates who continue their education in graduate or professional schools. Why not attack the exorbitant cost of an LAC education with more relevant options ?[/quote]

I think what you are concerned about is more liberal arts education in general rather than its delivery in the form of a small college. As I see it, the only major difference between say Yale with 6,500 students and a 2,000 student LAC is size (excluding engineering). Sure, many national universities have specialized pre-professional programs (engineering, nursing, hotel management, business) but the majority of their students seem to opt for arts and sciences. LACs are basically smaller versions of the schools of arts and sciences that sit at the core of the undergraduate offering of large universities.

The hundreds or thousands of tiny liberal arts colleges around the country that no one has ever heard of probably have a somewhat bleak future and need to become more pre-professional. But there still seems to be strong demand for that core arts and sciences education whether as a prelude to advanced degrees or as a pathway to a career path that involves a broad range of cognitive skills.

While the bottom half of LACs nationally face a lot of risk, what seems to be happening at the moment is that the better LACs are getting the overflow of arts and sciences students at national universities. As mentioned, swollen endowments mean these schools can now give away half their spots to low income kids for whom these opportunities were not previously available. These schools have essentially created more demand by subsidizing new customers and will continue to do so. Top LACs will benefit by offering capacity to meet that expanded demand created by aggressive financial aid spending. [/quote]

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