Liberal Arts Colleges: Thriving, Surviving, or Endangered?

Breneman, David W.

ISBN 10: 0815710615 / ISBN 13: 9780815710615

Editore: Brookings Institution Press, 1994

Pages can have notes/highlighting. Spine may show signs of wear. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less. Codice articolo G0815710615I3N00

Riassunto:

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Private liberal arts colleges provide high-quality undergraduate education, but their survival is in doubt. Some see the liberal arts as increasingly irrelevant in a world marked by growing demand for technical training. Others wonder how private colleges, many with few students and high tuitions, can compete successfully against heavily subsidized public colleges and universities.

David Breneman, an economist and former college president, explores these and many other educational and economic issues in this book, a detailed analysis of more than 200 liberal arts colleges. Breneman describes the recent financial and curricular history of liberal arts colleges. He explains how they have survived and how many have prospered despite severe competitive pressures. He shows how both outsiders and college administrators themselves misunderstand the role and effects of unfunded student aid (tuition discounting) and how this misunderstanding leads to questionable policies. He shows why the universe of liberal arts colleges—which includes such diverse members as women's colleges, black colleges, religiously affiliated colleges, and highly selective colleges—have had diverse experiences and confront different futures.

Breneman includes sketches of twelve colleges that provide insight into both the shared and distinctive concerns of a varied but representative set of liberal arts colleges. He weaves these specific cases into a concluding chapter on the prospects for liberal arts colleges.

This book is designed to appeal to college administrators, trustees, faculty, students, alumni, policymakers, and anyone who cares about quality higher education.

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Product Description: Private liberal arts colleges are among the oldest of American institutions. Yet their history has been surrounded by concern about their ability to survive. Some see these small colleges as increasingly irrelevant in a world marked by growing demand for technical training. Others wonder how private colleges, many with few students and high tuitions, can compete successfully against heavily subsidized public colleges and universities. David Breneman, an economist and former college president, confronts the renewed concern about the future of liberal arts colleges. He explains that as higher education emerged from the relatively expansive years of the 1980s into the economically distressed 1990s, many college administrators faced - and continue to face - great uncertainty about enrollment and funding. Can these small, labor-intensive colleges thrive, or will they wither? Will families be able - and willing - to pay the costs required for this type of education? Will the drift toward technical and professional studies doom colleges devoted to seemingly less practical study of the arts and sciences? In this book, Breneman explores these and many other educational and economic issues. He provides a detailed analysis of more than 200 liberal arts colleges and describes the recent financial and curricular history of many of these schools. He explains how they have survived and how many have prospered despite severe competitive pressures. Breneman shows why the universe of liberal arts colleges - which includes such members as women's colleges, black colleges, religiously affiliated colleges, and highly selective colleges - have had diverse experiences and confront different futures. LiberalArts Colleges includes sketches of twelve colleges that provide insight into both the shared and distinctive concerns of a varied but representative set of liberal arts colleges. The author weaves these specific cases into a final chapter on the prospects for liberal arts colleges

Dati bibliografici

Titolo: Liberal Arts Colleges: Thriving, Surviving, ...
Casa editrice: Brookings Institution Press
Data di pubblicazione: 1994
Legatura: Paperback
Condizione: Good
Condizione sovraccoperta: No Jacket