Affecting School Size

I was recently at a luncheon with a large university and I heard a really good line: you can make a big school smaller, but you can’t make a small school bigger. For many students, the size of a college is a critical part in their decision about which school to attend. The size of a college is an important factor and what this quote says about school size rings true.

As with anything there are pros and cons to each. Chief among the advantages of a big
school are resources. They typically command a larger budget which translates
to more programs, more equipment and facilities for those programs, and more
money with which to attract professors to instruct those programs. There are
some parts of student life that many would see as more robust as well. They
might have more athletics, better housing options, and better student programs.
What the small schools bring to the table are smaller faculty/student ratios,
tighter-knit communities, and a familiar student body. Small colleges are where
every student might be on a first name basis with a school’s president, the
networking might be more personal, and students seldom feel lost in a sea of
thousands of students they’ll never know.

Each type of school brings something to the table, but the point of the quote above is
that it’s far easier to create the advantages of a small school within a large
school setting, than vice versa. Indeed, I’d encourage any student who chooses
to attend a big school to get involved. In doing so, a student creates their own family. If you’re in a club or a group at a big school and make a social effort therein, you’re inevitably going to synthesize the family atmosphere that is present at many school settings. It might be impossible to get to know every individual on campus, but you can create an atmosphere where you know some people and have a group that looks after you, while you look after them.

What it is extremely difficult for an individual student to do is to improve the resources of a small school. You can’t purchase equipment that cost thousands or millions of dollars, you can’t hire experts and noteworthy professors, and you can’t attract renowned speakers and celebrities in for speaking engagements. A small school student just can’t make resources materialize out of thin air. However, it might be possible to simulate some things a big school offers by attending a small school in a larger city. Larger cities might have some opportunities and resources available to its residents. While these won’t be available exclusively to students of a given school, cities could work to increase what a small school student is able to experience.

I’m not trying to make the argument that big schools are better than small, but I do
believe that small schools have a weakness that is more difficult to overcome
than what most perceive as the weakness of larger schools. Either way, any
student would do well to make strides to limit the effects of these weaknesses
which will only enhance their college experience.