Neely The Threats to Liberal Arts Colleges

N 1998, A POLL OF UNIVERSITY OFFICIALS conducted by U.S. News & World Report ranked the University of Arkansas fifty-third in academic reputation among the fifty-four schools of the nation’s five major athletic conferences. Also in 1998, the University of Arkansas increased the number of first-year students scoring in the ninety-fifth percentile on standardized entrance tests by 42 percent. It used a heavy marketing campaign, but the key difference was an increase in the scholarship budget from $1.8 million to about $4.4 million. Approximately $1.5 million of the increase came from the family of the late Sam Walton, founder of Wal-Mart Stores Inc., with headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas. The funds were earmarked for full scholarships targeted specifically at academically superior, not economically poorer, students. University officials have reported success. Many students who would have gone to out-of-state schools are now staying in Arkansas. And the quality of these students has added new vitality to academic life at the university. There is little doubt that the university’s academic reputation will rise, since at heart it depends most heavily not on history, faculty, or facilities but on the quality of the students.1 The University of Arkansas is a long way from most of the schools that are referred to as “prestigious” or “selective” liberal arts colleges. But the trends showing up in Fayetteville reflect the many pulls that threaten to undermine the status, role, and maybe even existence of those liberal arts colleges. Among the growing trends evident in this example are competi-