Innovative Admission Practices for the Liberal Arts College
Caught between an inflating economy and increasing tuition, between the draft and compensatory education, and between student involvement and campus violence, the private liberal arts college has few prospects of gaining large numbers of students. At the rate of gain being made by public higher education over private, the overall rate of growth in college attendance will not be enough to offset decreasing enrollment in the private sector. It is entirely possible that within a decade there will be fewer than four hundred rather than more than eight hundred private colleges in the United States. Survival, then, becomes an overarching consideration that shapes curriculum, faculty, facilities, manner of management, and admission program. The question which most small liberal arts colleges and even some of the larger ones are asking is, will we be one of the ones to survive? No one can accurately predict the answer, but colleges can quickly be separated into those which may have a chance and those which probably do not, on the basis of the answers to three fundamental questions. Until these questions can be answered positively, there is no point in wasting time on