In the United States, colleges and universities have traditionally undertaken the important task of preparing citizens to participate fully and effectively in the civic, political, and economic spheres of the republican system. They have done so by joining a general education curriculum--common to all students--to an area of specialized knowledge, a major or concentration designed to prepare graduates for a specific profession. The survey evaluates every four-year public university with a stated liberal arts mission as well as hundreds of private colleges and universities selected on the basis of size, mission, and regional representation. All schools in the study are regionally accredited, nonprofit institutions. Combined, the over 1,100 institutions in the study enroll nearly eight million students, more than two-thirds of all students enrolled in four-year liberal arts schools nationwide. The American Council of Trustees and Alumni's curricular research team examined the undergraduate catalogs and other publicly available materials of over 1,100 colleges and universities to assess academic requirements. [For the 2018 report, see ED592064.]