Top-ranked liberal-arts colleges are failing to provide their students with a rigorous higher education even as many of them have steadily increased tuition and administrative spending in recent years, the American Council of Trustees and Alumni asserted in a report released on Monday.
The conservative-leaning advocacy group’s report, “Education or Reputation? A Look at America’s Top-Ranked Liberal-Arts Colleges,” examined 29 colleges listed by U.S. News & World Report as the top liberal-arts institutions in the country. The group’s report criticized the colleges in a number of areas, such as their spending on instruction and administration, tuition prices, and executive compensation, as well as speech policies that the group said curbed students’ freedom of expression.
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