Teaching methods

Courses: depending on the institution, a full-time student course load varies from 12-20 credits, 4-5 courses.

Professor/student ratio:
Professor’s accessibility: In general, the smaller the institution, the more personal attention you receive from faculty and administrators. Classes are often smaller, and the faculty devote more time to teaching. Large institutions offer more diversity and usually have prominent researchers on the faculty. Research facilities and equipment are usually superior. The number of students in a large university, often as many as 30,000 to 40,000, reduces the amount of individual contact possible between students and professors and therefore increases the need for self-reliance on the part of students.

Equipment: In 1998, around 80% of public schools had computer labs with modems, networks, CD-Roms and Cable TV. Today that number must be as high as 95%. There are around 11,000 college and university libraries in the US with over 800 million volumes and 21 million volumes added during every year. Over 91% of urban libraries had Internet connection in 1998.