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I had a liberal arts education at Amherst College where I had two majors, mathematics and philosophy.

I went to Amherst because my brother had gone there before me, and he went there because his guidance counselor thought that we would do better there than at a large university like Harvard.

Amherst was pivotal in my broad intellectual development; MIT in my development as a professional economist.

The role of a liberal arts college within a university is to be a genuine part of that university, giving and responding to the other parts.

Community colleges are great bargains. They avoid the fancy amenities four-year liberal arts colleges need in order to lure the children of the middle class.

My parents had an old-fashioned ideal of college, that four years at a liberal arts college should be a liberal arts education.

I went to Princeton from Amherst, where I split my interests between mathematics and philosophy.

I attended Amherst College from 1951 to 1955. The first two years were a revelation. There were innumerable exchanges with brilliant classmates, among them the playwright Ralph Allen, the classics scholar Robert Fagles, and the composer Michael Sahl.

When I was in college at Amherst, my father asked me a favor: to take one course in economics. I loved it - for the challenge of its mysteries.