by Sophie Blumert In our national study of higher education, we interviewed approximately 2000 participants who we considered major stakeholders in the undergraduate experience. To this point much of our analysis and reporting has focused on constituencies on campus: students, faculty, and administrators. We believed it was important to have a wide variety of voices […]

The Liberal Arts By Any Other Name… American Higher Education and Ideas about the Liberal Arts and Sciences
In September 2018, we posted a blog about our impressions of the different ways in which participants understand the term “liberal arts and sciences.” Since then, we have completed a full analysis of these differences. In the following blog, we highlight our major findings. by Christina Smiraglia What does the term ‘liberal arts” mean to […]

Taking advantage of college (before it’s too late…)
by Katie Abramowitz On the brink of my senior year of college—possibly in person, possibly online—I know I should be looking to the future and thinking about jobs or graduate school or whatever comes next. Instead, I have found myself preoccupied with a question I wish I had asked myself in earnest four years ago: […]

Looking Beyond the Sticker Price
by Sophie Blumert “Cost of college continues to skyrocket…” “Several colleges in New England now cost $70,000 or more…” “The spiraling cost of college…” These are just a few of the hundreds of headlines related to the steady rise in college tuition over several decades—a trend that has become even more pronounced in the past […]

A Laser-Like Focus on Academics: Responses to Four Skeptics
by Howard Gardner and Wendy Fischman Our comprehensive national study of higher education has focused on colleges that describe their curricula as based on “the liberal arts” or “the liberal arts and sciences.” Because those terms are widely misunderstood, we have (with some reluctance) decided to substitute descriptions that are blander and possibly more transparent—“general […]