Some of the traditional Liberal Arts Colleges (LACs) have very strong science programs and many students graduate in science and math related majors. In fact some of the more well known “Liberal Arts Colleges” have nearly 30%-50% of the students graduate in STEM related majors. The chart above shows the percentage of graduates in STEM and non STEM related majors across a few Liberal Arts Colleges for academic year 2015-16.
What kind of STEM related majors are offered at Liberal Arts Colleges? The majors range from Math, Statistics, Physics, Astrophysics, Biology, Molecular Biology, Neurobiology, Chemistry, Computer and Informational Sciences Psychology and even Engineering. Though many folks may think that Psychology is an arts major, it is actually classified as a STEM major by the National Science Foundation. So we consider it a STEM major for all our analysis purposes. Social sciences/studies are also considered to be included in the NSF STEM categorization, but there is no complete consensus about it. We consider social sciences to be a separate category.
The most popular science major at LAC are the biological science majors. Physics and Chemistry are also fairly popular majors.
Traditionally, LAC have always offered natural sciences and math as major choices. In recent times they have expanded their offerings to include other majors especially in biological sciences and further onto computer and information science and even engineering majors at some of the liberal arts colleges such as Swarthmore.
In conclusion, students who are interested in STEM majors, especially science majors, should take a look at Liberal Arts Colleges. Liberal Arts Colleges have a different look and feel and atmosphere on the campus as compared to more larger colleges/universities which are known to offer many STEM majors across different disciplines. Students who are interested in smaller college settings may find the best of both worlds: STEM and Liberal Arts College.