There are a couple of different definitions of Liberal Arts (LA) college, and USMA fits both:
First, it's not the other possible buckets:
- A university, largely defined as a specific number of degrees offered at undergrad
through grad level.
- A technical or vocational school offering primarily engineering, medical, legal, or other specialized training. Any specialized school including engineering schools can fall into this.
It does fit the affirmative LA definition:
- require an initial core curriculum aimed at imparting broad general knowledge and developing general intellectual capacities, in contrast to a professional, vocational, or technical curriculum. IE: mandated core curriculum without the option to cut straight to major requirements. While some major requirements can be started early, the core freshman/sophomore curriculum is non-specialized.
Liberal arts the simply the most common designation, and most smaller colleges fall into this bucket simply by not meeting the University definition due to not enough grad level degrees.
There are few schools which take the Liberal Arts philosophy to an extreme, focusing primarly on a broad classical training, with very little specialization. USMA is not one of those, nor are most LA colleges.
The label has nothing to do with political leanings
, which is the most misunderstood aspect of "Liberal Arts" college. In fact, many universities & hard core engineering schools are more politically liberal than most of the Lib arts schools!