Out of the Blue - March
This month’s edition of Out of the Blue (A Monthly Electronic Newsletter for Alumni, Parents, and Friends) is now online. In it there are more notes about the new dinning hall policy of offering alcohol (in moderation) to students over 21, some alums speaking at Colby about the recent election, students’ spring break plans… but my favorite piece was about a survey of college professors nationwide:
A recent column in the Cleveland Plain Dealer led us to a Vanderbilt study titled “Where Do the Children of Professors Attend College?” Sure enough, the study is online. Its premise is that profs are “the best-informed consumers of higher education,” and it wanted to find what types of institutions their children attend. Quoting the summary: “There is a substantial tilt toward liberal arts colleges among the choices.” Compared to families of similar socioeconomic status, children of faculty families are “more likely to choose research universities and even more likely to choose selective liberal arts colleges.” In the Plain Dealer’s words, the authors “argue that places like Amherst, Colby and Pomona colleges, where full-time professors’ first task is teaching undergraduates, offer the best value.”
Cool. The study is online.
