The "A" List: Schools With The Most Well-Rounded Curricula

Soon after a new study showed that nearly half of college students learn a negligible amount while in school, the American Council of Trustees and Alumni released a report identifying schools that push students to obtain well-rounded educations.

The report (PDF) and correlating website, titled "What Will They Learn," evaluated 718 national colleges and universities according to their general education requirements.

Those schools that have requirements in six or seven of the seven subjects identified as essential by the Council -- composition, literature, foreign language, U.S. government or history, economics, mathematics and natural or physical sciences -- earned an "A," while those that required zero or one of them got a failing mark. To determine which schools' requirements fit the bill, the Council looked through core requirements and course descriptions available online and through catalogues.

The report addresses why some prominent schools, like Brown, Cornell and Yale, did poorly in the rankings:

Certainly, a student can get an excellent education at these schools if she chooses her classes wisely. What our study reveals, however, is that instead of holding these outstanding students to a high standard, the professional educators are letting students take obscure, esoteric and, and sometimes light-weight classes in place of a rigorous coherent liberal arts core.

Whatwilltheylearn.com offers profiles of each school, and the report (PDF) shows how each state ranked and presents an index which explains why each school did or didn't make the cut.

Below, check out the 17 schools that made the "A" list.

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Baylor University

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Do you think these schools deserve to top the list? Let us know what you think in the comments section.

Comments

[LordRae]

06:30 PM on 02/16/2011

I can only speak for what I konw (unlike people here), but I would say that I'm an engineering student at the University of Texas at Austin, and yes, it's quality education. The bottom 50% are bad, and they got in because of a state 10% rule, but the top 50% of students are usually great ones.

Besides, if you do a search, most of the faculty in my department (for instance), are pretty good. Every single Engineering professor who has taught me has been a strong PhD graduate coming from Ivy Leagues. So yes, I believe UT is pretty ok.

[DrakeUnlimited]

03:02 AM on 02/14/2011

I went to the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. I have never paid more to be taught less.

Incidentally, this article is disingenuous to institutions like Union College where merit and scholarship are the standard acceptance criteria.

[lakefront liberal]

07:49 PM on 02/12/2011

Did this study look at the quality of classes taken and not just the number of different subjects? Just because I take a college math course and an English course with Spanish doesn't make me a well rounded student. When I went to MIT and compared notes to old highschool classmates back at home, I realized that with the amount of material we covered and the breadth of different subject matter we had to take in our core curriculum, I could have been a double major at another college. Colleges should teach students how to think logically and critically, provide a breadth of general knowledge, and give them an in depth understanding in a subject that suits them. Most of the subjects mentioned in the study should have been covered in high school, not college. Perhaps that is why the US is falling behind so many other nations.

[widcirc]

09:25 PM on 02/10/2011

everyone just hates on the ivys in their comments, they're considered good schools for a reason . . . they're challenging, and even if they weren't, the students who manage to get accepted in there are going to challenge and push themselves because they are all ambitious, motivated, and curious

these lists are completely arbitrary . . . did the writers go to each school and take the classes listed in their core or general curriculum? Just because the requirement exists doesn't mean that they are actually any good.

[DessLoch]

06:00 AM on 02/12/2011

I don't see the point of comparing colleges that require mastery of the core subjects before attending their institution with colleges that don't achieves anything without acknowledging the difference.

[jdshadforth]

10:47 PM on 02/07/2011

This is a ridiculous survey, even more than most of the college lists on HuffPost. To say that regional state universities produce more well-rounded students than some of the top liberal arts colleges in the United States simply perpetuates the wrong-headed anti-intellectualism at the heart of current political discourse. Having taught at some of the B and C institutions, I can tell you that students taking composition and basic math (What on earth is "college" algebra, anyway?) are simply filling gaps left from their sub-standard secondary school education. On the other hand, some of the F schools here, including my own alma mater, don't require such courses because students arrive on campus able to write a coherent sentence or take calculus as a first college math course. That is not to say that colleges/universities with true core curriculum or Great Books programs aren't excellent schools. It would be a real mistake, though, to equate a Columbia or University of Chicago with the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. College has become nothing more than 13th grade for students who squawk when pushed beyond the educational norms they absorbed in high school. Equating these incurious minds with students who have manifested at least some modicum of academic achievement such that they don't need to redo high school can only result from the most superficial understanding of what higher education is supposed to be about.

[HelloooCanada]

12:51 AM on 02/07/2011

this list reminds me of how they give basically every kid a crown of some sort in a scary children's pageant...

and crown for best wow-wear goes to.... EAST TENNESSEE STATE UNIVERSITY!

finally, everybody's college has made it onto a list! yay!

[LK Louise]

02:05 PM on 02/06/2011

My Baylor undergraduate consistently challenged me. I transferred there in 2006 after being bored at my previous school. After my graduation (B.A. Religion), I traveled all summer with other liberal arts students. I was SHOCKED that students from Boston College, Wake Forest, Brown, etc, didn't have the same rigors as Baylor, despite being "better schools". I was actually somewhat angry to see how much better prepared I was both for "the real world" and for graduate school while these students spent a lot more time doing... well, I'm still not sure what.

My brother, an Honors UT student has been cheated of the same enviornment (though he probably disagrees). It was as if his hard work in high school was permission to "relax" for four years. That seems to be the attitude that both my parents and these schools take with their high school prodigies. I certainly see that in the same schools professional graduate programs now as well (UT law throws a lot of parties when they apparently have the smarts to change the legal system of the US).

An aside: I wasn't a great student. I was the "popular sorority girl", didn't even 3.0 every semester (though my overall was above that & I was an Eta Sigma Phi Classics Honor Society initiate). I spent 6 weeks every spring dancing 2 hours a day (SING :http://youtu.be/iSqkd2NzKiU ) & I worked at least 20 hours a week (at a bar no less) instead of studying.

[morefromLA]

02:19 PM on 02/02/2011

Let's see: Baylor; Texas A&M - Corpus Christi; Texas A&M - College Station; University of Dallas; University of Texas and Lamar University (part of the Texas State University system). I'm not sure but there seems to be a pattern here that might MIGHT indicate a slight SLIGHT geographical bias towards the great state of Texas when more than 1/3 of the 17 'A list' colleges are found in that great state. No Brown, no Cornell (eat your heart out Keith Olbermann), no Yale. Really? Why wasn't this article saved for April 1st?

[healthanalyst]

11:32 PM on 02/04/2011

Ivies have a feel good curriculum. And I'm a Texas grad.

[morefromLA]

11:41 AM on 02/05/2011

UT is a very good school (almost as good as Wisconsin - Go Badgers!) but Lamar? By this count, Texas better not secede or they'll take the best of American higher education with them.

[Widespread Panic]

09:54 PM on 02/01/2011

Baylor made this list? I'm somewhat surprised...

[healthanalyst]

11:33 PM on 02/04/2011

If you don't mind the Bible beating, its not a bad school.

[Widespread Panic]

11:47 PM on 02/04/2011

Yep, it is a good school, I graduated from there and believe I received a pretty good education.

I was being just a little facetious cause of all the Bible beatings I had to deal with. :)

[LK Louise]

02:19 PM on 02/06/2011

I transfered to Baylor wary of the same conservative religion-ist feel, and it deserves to be on this list. The school teaches evolution, is for women's ordination, for the separation of church and state and while Baptist, IS NOT AFFILIATED with the Southern Baptist Convention. The administration and professors are not as conservative as some of the students (I mean, hey, we expelled Tom Delay & technically, Rand Paul never graduated. Ann Richards did graduate.) I have a lot of disagreements with Ken Starr, but not his ability in administration.

The academics were impressive: as a Religion Major, I was still required to take real "hard sciences" and math classes. I was held to high attendance standards (it's lot easier to learn if you're required to go to class, though I hated the policy at the time). I had to become fluent in a foreign language, though I lucked out by taking the ancient Greeks (homeric, attic, & konie) for 3 years and 1 year of latin instead of learning to speak Chinese or French (most all freshman language classes meet every day as well). "Testing out" of a basic requirement simply required me a higher level course instead of exempting me from graduation hours, as it works all over campus.
While it seems silly, I was pleased that even business school students were required to take ethics and history classes that left them with a working knowledge of Hobbes, Smith, etc as part of a strong core.

[Widespread Panic]

07:35 PM on 02/06/2011

Yep, I was one of those business/IT majors that had to take the religion and ethics classes. Actually I was okay with all of it - I learned a lot and that's what really matters. :)

[sarita554]

11:41 AM on 01/31/2011

This list is meaningless; the grading system is not even accurate. The school where I did my undergrad received an F, with none of the seven columns checked. While there are not specific requirements as in "you must take one math, one language, one history", there ARE distributional requirements at this school, you must take at least 3 humanities, 3 social sciences, 3 natural sciences...

[healthanalyst]

11:33 PM on 02/04/2011

which was where, pray tell?

[tehIanMac]

01:55 AM on 01/28/2011

As a Pepperdine University undergraduate, I would like to take offense at our exclusion from this list. The breadth of our required classes is far beyond anything else I've ever seen. Let's take a look at their criteria. "composition, literature, foreign language, U.S. government or history, economics, mathematics and natural or physical sciences" I had to take 3 units of composition, 4 units of literature, 16 units of foreign language, 8 units of US Civics AND history, 3 units of Economics, 3 units of Psychology, 4 units of Calculus, and 4 units of Anatomy. Not to mention 9 units of Global history, 9 units of Religion, 2 units of fine arts and 3 units of Public Speaking. None of the classes mentioned counted towards my major. I think we get an "A."

[morefromLA]

02:22 PM on 02/02/2011

Sorry, but last I checked Pepperdine wasn't in Texas so your alma mater's chances were significantly handicapped.

[healthanalyst]

11:34 PM on 02/04/2011

He forgot surfing and beach.

[matson]

10:51 PM on 01/27/2011

This list is totally wacky and might have been compiled by Newt Gingrich.

[logic-a-go-go]

11:08 PM on 01/26/2011

What the heck is Midwestern State University? An online school???

[sempronia]

03:35 PM on 01/26/2011

I'm glad to see a show-casing of good schools that are more accessible. I've talked about this before -- that I was an undergrad at an Ivy and am now a grad student at UT. What I will say about UT is that if you are a student, you have to be proactive: you can work through the system and get a world-class education, or you can slack your way through. In some ways, from what I can tell with undergrads, it's huge and lacks some of the support systems from my undergrad. But I do think it's a good place to be -- for now. We'll see what our wonderful cowboy governor and brand new legislature bring down upon us...

[healthanalyst]

11:36 PM on 02/04/2011

It used to be a lot cheaper. Thank the GOP for not adequately funding it. But its got the Permanent University Fund, so that helps. And it depends on your major. Slack does not work in engineering and natural sciences. Ok, except Home Ec.

[Upside]

05:53 PM on 01/25/2011

How can you not have the University of Chicago (or to a lesser extent, Columbia) on this list? Maybe the Texas Council of Trustees and Alumni haven't heard of any schools outside of the Lone Star State..

[LoungeOwl]

02:37 PM on 01/26/2011

University of Chicago, agreed.

[sempronia]

03:36 PM on 01/26/2011

Columbia's core curriculum -- yes, I did think of that.