Frequently Asked Questions

What Will They Learn?® (WWTL) is a project of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA). Institutions evaluated by WWTL are assigned a letter grade ranging from “A+”–“F” based on how many of the following seven core subjects they require: Composition, Literature, (intermediate-level) Foreign Language, U.S. Government or History, Economics, Mathematics, and Natural Science. What Will They Learn?® evaluates schools on five additional subject areas that are not graded but that are also very important to a strong liberal arts education: Philosophy, Religion, World History, Western Civilization, and Fine Arts.

WWTL assigns a letter grade (“A+”–“F”) to each college based on how many of the following subjects are required in its core curriculum: Composition, Literature, (intermediate-level) Foreign Language, U.S. Government or History, Economics, Mathematics, and Natural Science. These are the subjects that ACTA’s Council of Scholars has deemed to be essential to a strong liberal arts education. To receive credit for a subject area, a college must require that students take a course of a certain breadth and depth in the subject. The seven subjects all hold equal value. Five additional subject areas are also evaluated but do not contribute to a school’s WWTL grade. Visit our Rating Criteria page for more information about our standards for each subject. 

ACTA’s Council of Scholars, a panel of academics who are experts in their fields, has identified these seven subjects as essential training for all American college students. While other subjects, such as fine arts and philosophy, are also part of a well-rounded education, our experts believe that these seven subjects are the indispensable core of higher education. A core curriculum that fails to require the seven key subjects will not satisfy the basic demands of general education. It is essential that students learn to: 

  • write well; 

  • read carefully and understand the human experience; 

  • communicate at a somewhat sophisticated level in a foreign language, since we live in an increasingly interconnected world; 

  • understand the history and governing institutions of this country to prepare them for informed citizenship; and 

  • understand enough math, science, and economics to be able to function in a 21st-century society. 

We regularly update the ratings for all our schools, with a maximum of two years between each rating cycle. The research to support the ratings is conducted year-round, and a full set of curriculum reviews is completed every two years. College curriculum usually only changes once every two to three years.  

ACTA’s What Will They Learn?® initiative began as a research project in 2009 by evaluating 100 of the nation’s leading colleges and universities. In subsequent years, the list of reviewed schools has grown to include well over 1,100 institutions.  

The over 1,100 institutions on WhatWillTheyLearn.com are four-year, not-for-profit, federally accredited public and private colleges and universities with a stated liberal arts mission. Our website does not include institutions with a vocational, technical, or otherwise narrow mission focus.  

What Will They Learn?® does not rank schools in comparison to each other; instead, it rates them on objective academic criteria. It grades each school based on the strength of its core curriculum. This is what makes WWTL unique—none of the major college search guides or ranking systems provide an evaluation of what students are learning or of colleges’ general education requirements. While college ranking systems examine institutions’ wealth, reputation, physical facilities, number of Ph.D.s among the faculty, popular majors, and alumni giving records, no system other than What Will They Learn?® prioritizes the curriculum. 

All of the information about colleges and universities’ curricula comes from publicly released course catalogs and college websites. The information about institutional spending comes from ACTA’s research initiative HowCollegesSpendMoney.com. Hidden Gems and Oases of Excellence are ACTA initiatives. Information about campus climate comes from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.  

All of the other institutional statistics (tuition, enrollment, graduation rates, student-to-faculty ratio, school setting and size, etc.) come from undergraduate data provided by the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics, either from College Navigator or the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS). Reach out to the WhatWillTheyLearn.com team with any further questions. 

In general, core curriculum requirements nationwide have weakened over time, and the most common WWTL grades are increasingly “Cs” and “Ds”. We invite you to visit our Explore the Data page for specific details.

There is a range of valuable core curriculum subjects among institutions, but the seven core subjects that we identify form the basic foundation of knowledge on which an American college education should build. ACTA has identified additional subjects that provide significant value to college graduates, including philosophy, religion or theology, Western Civilization, world history, and fine arts, and WhatWillTheyLearn.com members will see these on our website in the near future.  

WhatWillTheyLearn.com provides information to prospective college students, their families, and educators to help them make choices that maximize the value of the higher education experience. It also serves higher education leaders who seek to implement significant academic reform, such as trustees, alumni, administrators, faculty, and policymakers. 

A core curriculum is a type of general education program. A general education program is a set of academic requirements determined by colleges that all students must take before graduation and which they usually complete before continuing on to a major. Almost all two- and four-year colleges have general education programs, and these programs are usually required by accreditors. Colleges and universities with a liberal arts mission usually require general education across the liberal arts. 

Based on our research for What Will They Learn?®, the most common general education model in America is distribution requirements. In this model, students select one or more courses from broad academic areas, such as “Humanities,” “Quantitative Reasoning,” or “Arts and Culture.” Students choose from dozens or even hundreds of course options within each distribution area, and these course options often include many highly specialized, niche topics. At Pennsylvania State University, for example, students can choose from over 480 different classes to fulfill their “United States Cultures” requirement, including “World Media Systems” and “Introduction to Video Game Culture.” Unfortunately, the wide range of options in distribution requirement programs usually allows students to graduate with only a thin and patchy education, with no guarantee that they have learned a core set of facts or skills. 

A core curriculum model of general education, or “core,” ensures that all students at a college or university study a specified set of subjects across the liberal arts and learn each subjects’ key ideas, facts, and skills before graduation. There are different types of cores. In some cores, all students take the same preordained courses or course sequences (such as the famous “Literature Humanities” core at Columbia University). In other types of cores, students must still take courses or sequences in specific subjects, such as “American Government,” but may be able to choose from a short list of options. Graduates of a core curriculum program are able to have well-informed conversations about the set of subjects they have studied, and they enter society and the workforce with a strong skillset and knowledge base that they hold in common with other graduates. 

Most of these colleges’ general education programs lean toward the distribution requirement model instead of the core curriculum model and do not guarantee that all their graduates study the essential WWTL subject areas.  

Colleges and universities with broad and robust general education requirements offer all of their students an essential foundation in the liberal arts. Institutions with poor ratings in WWTL are not necessarily “failing” schools but are instead not meeting the long-term needs of their students by not requiring a broad-based core curriculum for all students majoring in the liberal arts. 

A well-designed core curriculum in the liberal arts, such as the WWTL model suggested by ACTA, gives students the broad base of knowledge they need to succeed in our globalized economy and help resolve major contemporary issues. Increased globalization requires greater depth of communication across languages and cultures. As STEM—science, technology, engineering, and mathematics—fields continue to rise in prominence, scientific literacy is indispensable, and understanding the human experience (literature, languages, and history) will be essential to distinguish humans from machines and guide ethical uses of technology. A common core of knowledge among citizens, especially knowledge of American institutions and history, can help reduce polarization by facilitating discussion and open discourse, even among people with deep disagreements.   

High school students generally have not taken all of the courses that comprise a robust collegiate core curriculum. And more importantly, high school-level classes almost never explore the material at a level equivalent with higher education. However, when students take college-level courses before matriculating and receive Advanced Placement (AP)/International Baccalaureate (IB)/College-Level Examination Program (CLEP)/Defense Activity for Non-Traditional Education Support (DANTES) credit for the courses, it is reasonable for colleges to count these courses toward students’ requirements.

Studies have shown mixed results on colleges’ performance in workforce preparation. The National Association of Colleges and Employers’ 2022 job outlook study found that on average, recent college graduates lack the key skills that are most valued by employers: 

  • Only 56% of graduates are proficient in critical thinking. 

  • Just 54% are proficient in communication. 

  • Only 78% are proficient in teamwork. 

A 2021 study by the Association of American Colleges and Universities found that employers want colleges to teach students the same skills that are developed by a robust liberal arts education:  

  • Ninety-three percent of employers seek employees who are independent thinkers. 

  • Ninety-four percent seek employees who can adapt to new challenges.  

  • And ninety-two percent of employers seek employees who have received a well-rounded education.