Old technologies never die, they just return as luxury items. Take the fountain pen – at one time a mass-market comodity, it was made obsolete by the invention of the ballpoint and the growing popularity of air travel. Fountain pens have not gone extinct but their market has shrunk to a fraction of its former size. Today, fountain pens are exclusively luxury items that are cultivated by a small group of collectors. Irrelevant to the broader culture, they shoulder on.

Will the American liberal arts college go the way of the fountain pen? We know these institutions, especially the well-endowed ones, will not die. Could they become increasingly culturally irrelevant, a luxury item supported by a small group of devotees?

The common defense of the American liberal arts colleges focuses on the invaluable nature of the habits of mind instilled by a four-year immersion in pure learning. But if the relevance of liberal arts colleges is threatened, it is not due to the educational program but to the social environments of the colleges.

Fifty years ago, most liberal arts colleges featured a socially narrow mix of students. Many in New England were all-male. Although enormous efforts have been made to diversify the populations of liberal arts colleges, liberal arts colleges still cater to a narrow band of students when measured against the broader mix of races and classes in the U.S. or, more importantly, against the increasingly global community of high level information producers. I am reminded of this every time I leave a liberal arts college and wait for my plane in an airport. The mix of people in an airport includes a dramatically more diverse set of interests and social affiliations than the group of students you experience at a liberal arts college. Liberal arts college communities are, as the students like to say, a bubble, and a relatively homogenous bubble at that.

Although liberal arts colleges have made sincere and concerted efforts to diversify their communities, their efforts have fallen short due to countervailing forces. One obviously is high tuition. Another, even in cases where cost is not a real obstacle, is the central role of SAT scores in college recruitment. Because SAT performance correlates with class and race, placing high priority on SAT scores works against building a community of diverse class and ethnic backgrounds.

Another factor threatening the cultural relevance of liberal arts colleges is the opulence of their communities. Although the liberal arts college of the 1950s was a socially homogeneous place, it was also relatively austere. Students had the experience of being disrupted from the comforts of home when they attended college. In the past 20 years, there has been an arms race among liberal arts colleges to upgrade the quality of their facilities with fancy new gyms, dorms, science centers, playing fields, dining halls, etc. As a result, the contemporary liberal arts college reflects back onto affluent students a sense of social entitlement in line with the communities from which they come. It is noteworthy that the social disruption that formerly came with the move from home to a residential liberal arts college now comes with the move from a residential liberal arts college to a study abroad location: it is now the latter step where students are expected to mature by experiencing a world different from their own. That no longer happens at the liberal arts college.

As those in leadership positions at liberal arts colleges understand, the omens are not good for reversing the trends that work against the social heterogeneity of liberal arts colleges. Changing demographics combined with the loss of wealth and borrowing capacity will make the competition for affluent students in the coming years more, not less, intense. There is no indication that prestige rankings or the focus on SATs will become less significant than they are today.

Will we be left with gorgeous, refined Mont Blancs of higher learning, catering to the affluent classes, academics, and the small select group that appreciates the education? We are at a critical juncture in the history in the American liberal arts college. At no time has visionary leadership and willingness to take risks been more essential for institutions that I still believe provide among the best educational experience for young people.