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Isocrates was born into a well-to-do family, but found the need to support himself through speech writing, eventually opening up his own school where "the fees were heavy..." [1]
Christian influence in liberal arts education and warlike conditions of the era say "liberal education gradually retreated into private tutorials in the homes of noble families who still remembered the ideal of eloquent and virtuous learning; into parish and episcopal schools, though these flickered on and off; and above all, into monasteries which, being small, self-sufficient and enclosed, were best suited to preserve liberal education during a period of political unrest and military invasion." [2]
Like Laura Cerata and Christine de Pizan, Bathsua Malkin's father allowed for her education.[2] She is not wealthy herself during the early years of her marriage. In her essay, "Essay to Revive the Ancient Education of Gentlewomen" assures her reader, "That I may be more distinct in what I intend, I shall distinguish of women. Women are of two sorts: RICH (of good natural parts), POOR (of low parts.)" [3]
Dartmouth College, located in remote New Hampshire, was not exposed to the fighting of Revolutionary War battles, allowing it to operate uninterrupted and without competition.[2] It "became predominant in New England from which it drew most of its students, who were generally of modest means." [3] The "Catalog of Dartmouth College for the Academic Year 1852-53" indicates the school recognized some students had financial needs, indicated by the 'Funds for the Assistance of Indigent Students' which were need-based and available to students from New Hampshire.[4]
Alfred University, was an "atypical egalitarian model of higher education" [1] offering women and men equal access to education, serving "an economically homogeneous farming community." [2] In educating the the children of middle class farm families. It was described as an "economically accessible institution...Alfred offered social mobility to local young people and particularly to young women." [3]
The United States Congress passed two Morrill Acts - one in 1862 and later 1890. These acts established land grant colleges to give access to practical education to a greater number of Americans. The latter act was passed because Southern states wouldn't comply. The 1890 act opened up access to Americans of African descent. Federal funds were given to states to support the teaching of technical, mechanical and agricultural education.[3] While this opened up access to higher education to exponentially more people, it also influenced the offerings of early liberal arts colleges, such as Harvard and touched off "trouble to many small colleges"...."with no tuition fee...excellent facilities...with libraries more complete than any ordinary college could ever hope to possess, the state university presents an inducement to the prospective student which the smaller college cannot under any circumstances duplicate..." [3]
The debate over whether to educate woman included elements of social class. In Edward H. Clarke's, Sex in Education (1873) he describes an anecdote of a woman whose parents take her to "a year of the sea and the Alps, of England and of the Continent, the Rhine and Italy...."[1] Charles W. Eliot, president of Harvard, in his inaugural address, "envisioned a time" when "the University offers to young women who have been to good schools..." [2] qualifying and perhaps signaling the need for means to invest in education before Harvard.
James McCosh, in his essay rebuking many of President Elliot of Harvard's reasons for adding electives to the curriculum, was conscious of the results the changes would cause students who were not wealthy. He notes, "if this be carried out it is evident we shall have fewer young men taking a college education. A large number cannot afford to continue till twenty-five before they earn any money." [3]
In his essay, "The Talented Tenth", W.E.B. DuBois makes the case for liberally educating only but a few of the most promising students, explicitly mentioning the issue of class. "But I have already said that human education is not simply a matter of schools, it is much more of family and group life - the training of one's home, of one's daily companions, of one's social class."[1] In the same essay, he says, "It hardly be argued that the Negro people need social leadership more than most groups; that they have no traditions to fall back upon, no long established customs, no strong family ties, no well defined social classes."[2] DuBois appears to be in favor of using education, for a select group, to create an educated class.
While making the case for increased electives and choice among students, Reed College's president William T. Foster demonstrated the growing college population in the US by citing this statistic in his essay, Administration of the College Curriculum: "The total increase in seventeen years was over 150 percent, and increase out of all proportion to the corresponding gains in population. From 1902 to 1905 the registration of the small colleges in New England increased over twenty percent."[2] He expands on this explosive growth and offers a reason behind it; "...here, then, are the American public staking their sons, their daughters, and their millions on their faith in the possibilities of the college.."[3]
In 1916, Columbia College discontinued their Latin requirement for a Bachelors of Arts degree. Why was this staple of liberal arts education dropped? It was a "mindful" decision on the part of Columbia's trustees who recognized the need to "change the ethic and social composition of the College."[2] Daniel Bell, in his essay, "The Reforming of General Education" explains, "students from public high schools, where Latin was often either not taught or taught poorly, were at a disadvantage against those from private preparatory schools. The abolition of the Latin requirement made the public high school more important as a source of student supply."[3]
In addition to recognizing disadvantages students had attending public school related to classical subject such as Latin, Columbia's dean Frederick P. Keppel said the college had a "public duty to aid the ambitious but socially maladroit child of immigrants."[3] In this instance, he was referring to Jewish immigrants, who faced discrimination. "One of the commonest references that one hears with regard to Columbia, is that its position at the gateway of European immigration makes it socially uninviting to students who come from homes of refinement."[4] Keppel then calls this "slowly dying race prejudice" and goes on to make the case for welcoming this new type of student to Columbia.
In the "The Emerging Curricular Blueprint of the Mid-Twentieth Century", Kimball introduces the concept of 'honors' programs growing out of a "commonly expressed view in the 1920s."[2] This belief was 'that more colleges should adopt a rigorously selective plan of admission, because too many persons are going to college."[3] This appears to be another effect of the Morrill Acts. "In the state universities, to which any high school graduate must be admitted on the basis of his diploma, and in many small colleges where the need for students prevents the enforcement of any higher qualification for entrance, the standards of the average are beginning to be pulled down by the students who are below average in ability or preparation."[4] However, "they deserve nevertheless that their needs should be understood and met."[5]
In their essay, Reform Experiment in the American College (1978) Gerald Grant and David Reisman outline different reform movements in liberal arts education, all illustrating how the traditional liberal arts had been "reorganized", sometimes in radical ways. Changes occurred in the curriculum, "which not only introduced black and other ethnic studies and later women's studies, but also provided opportunities for credit for off-campus work..." [2]. Patricia Cross coined the term, "new students" for the non-traditional students colleges were seeing; "adults and especially older women returning to or finishing college." [3]
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