If Your School Isn't Listed
We are constantly working to update and expand the information contained on this website. Currently, the site contains over 700 schools, which collectively teach approximately 6 million undergraduates, or about 55 percent of all four-year undergraduate students in America.
If you would like to be kept up-to-date with the expansion process, you can sign up for e-mail updates. You will be the first to know when new schools are added, or if new information about an already-graded school becomes available. Feel free also to write to us or call us to request that a certain school be added.
If Your School Gets a Bad Grade
Students can make up for the deficiencies of their colleges by selecting for themselves those courses that make up a broad-based education and which prepare them to participate in civic and economic life. They should make sure that they leave college with critical thinking, reading, and writing skills, and seek courses that provide broad-based introductions to the key subjects outlined here. In many cases, institutions offer optional programs that provide an integrated study of essential subjects; those are noted on each school's page as appropriate. In other cases, faculty members have founded additional programs that buttress areas of the curriculum that are weak, such as American history. A partial list can be found in ACTA's report Protecting the Free Exchange of Ideas. We encourage students who want an excellent education to pursue all of these options.
For their part, parents should help their children to understand that trendy courses which strike their fancy do not serve their long-term needs. They should emphasize that a strong general education will help make them more productive members of the labor force, as they will be more adaptable in today's globalized and fast-paced world.
If You Want to Read Our Printed Report
Copies of ACTA's 2009 study What Will They Learn? (in which we assessed 100 of the best-known schools in the country) are available for download or purchase on our main website. Copies of the second edition of What Will They Learn? (which will include the more than 700 schools currently on the website) will be available in September 2010.
Contact Us
The American Council of Trustees and Alumni, which provides What Will They Learn?SM as a public service, would be happy to answer your questions and media inquiries:
American Council of Trustees and Alumni
1726 M Street, NW, Suite 802
Washington, DC 20036
Phone: 202-467-6787
Fax: 202-467-6784
Email: info@goacta.org
Website: www.goacta.org