What We Don't - But Should - Know About Higher Ed?

Are small classes better for student learning than large classes. This opinion writer says we should know, but we don't know - and that's just one example of many things we should know but do not know, about higher education:

You see it all the time, in the brochures and advertisements from liberal arts colleges and other non-gargantuan institutions. “Small class sizes,” they promise, and for good reason, because everyone knows that small classes are better than large. No cavernous lecture halls where the professor is little more than a distant stick figure, they say — raise your hand here, and someone will stop and listen. Plus, he or she will be a real professor, the genuine tenure-track article, not a part-timer or grad student but someone who really knows his or her stuff. Because everyone knows that real professors are better than the other kind.

Except, they don’t.