FYI

The U.S. News and World Report publishes an annual edition of America's Best Colleges.
One of the highlights of the magazine is its ranking of colleges and universities. Many people
are unaware of one the main differences between the two categories, national universities and
liberal arts colleges. Generally speaking, national universities emphasize graduate teaching,
research, publishing, and consulting. For faculty at those institutions, the rewards are not in
teaching undergraduates. As noted in the magazine, liberal arts colleges, on the other hand,
emphasize undergraduate education; consequently, classes tend to be smaller and faculty more
accessible. Some small universities want to emphasize their commitment to undergraduate
students and this is reflected in their mission statements and their proportion of graduate
students to undergraduate students.