The problem isn't that college-aged kids are performing poorly. The problem is that we've raised kids in an educational system that is dying and underfunded at the early levels. We cut physical education, art, music, cancel recess, and expect kids kids to grow up fine while learning subpar English and Maths. Universities have to lower their standards to help provide a job market for these children with under-developed fundamentals.
Study: College Students Not Learning Much
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Re: Study: College Students Not Learning Much
#12The findings also will likely spark a debate over what helps and hurts students learn. To sum up, it's good to lead a monk's existence: Students who study alone and have heavier reading and writing loads do well. You can "lead a monk's existence" by yourself, without paying a college $40-50k per 30-week year. Hit the books, learn as much as you can, then go out into the real world and make things happen. It kills me…
"See the sad thing about a guy like you is in fifty years you'll start doin' some thinking on your own and you're gonna come up that there are two certainties in life: one, don't do that. And two, you dropped a hundred and fifty grand on a fuckin' education you could have got for a dollar fifty in late charges at the public library"
-Matt Damon, Good Will Hunting
Re: Study: College Students Not Learning Much
#13[deleted]
Re: Study: College Students Not Learning Much
#14I know that for my undergrad, college seemed to be an extension of high school- and both the slackers and the non-slackers went to college. Now that I am in grad school, I don't notice many, if any, slackers.
Does anyone have any similar stories?
Re: Study: College Students Not Learning Much
#15I actually took part in this study. A few notes:
1. The exam was supposed to be administered 3 times, Freshman, Sophomore, and Senior years. I took it my Freshman and Senior years.
2. The exam was not a normal exam. I won't say it was pointless, it definitely measured something, but it's hard to say exactly what. Imagine you have to make an exam to measure "learning" and this thing was about as close as you could come to getting one. But that's still far off the mark.
3. The sample was not representative. Taking the exam was opt-in, and the college put forth a variety of incentives to get people to take the exams. Despite this, they definitely had a high drop off between sign-up-for-everything freshmen and I'm way too busy to spend three hours taking another exam seniors.
I believe there were schools where it was not opt-in, but even so, I can't imagine any of the students taking this exam had grades riding on their performance. And given that it was a single exam, it was dependent on the students' state of mind on the particular day they took the exam. Three data points per person, over four years. It's hard to draw any conclusions from this data.
Re: Study: College Students Not Learning Much
#16One problem is there is no incentive on the part of the college to teach much. I've long advocated that we need output measures for colleges. Colleges are rated on their input measures -- how competitive is it to get into the school. But no measure of how effective they are at teaching. As of today no one can really say where (on average) you'll learn more/better -- at Harvard or Ohio State. All we know is that Harva…
Out of curiosity, do you attend Ohio State? I'm currently enrolled as an undergrad and am always keeping an eye out for HNers at school.
Re: Study: College Students Not Learning Much
#17I have a problem with the metrics they use: 20 pages of writing, or 40 pages of reading They are going on the assumption that increased pages of writing and increased pages of reading is a metric for amount learned. There are so many lurking variables at play here. The attribution of cause and effect here to these arbitrary variables is an over simplification fallacy of what's really going on and why.
That's not the metric. The metric is not described in detail, but it is alleged to test "critical thinking, complex reasoning and writing". The non-textuality of the workload was a separate observation.
Re: Study: College Students Not Learning Much
#18Maybe the problem is not the college, but the slacker kids who skim by with the bare minimum effort. I'm always amused when the kids who used to tease me for taking college seriously post Facebook statuses like, "omg y cant i get a job?!?!"
"Them darn kids aint learnin cuz they aint tryin!" Let's consider the assumption that between 36% and 45% of all undergrad students are slackers. Sure, a bunch of students aren't learning because they are slackers, but why there are SO MANY of them? Are there more slackers as a percentage of the population than in the past? Is the internet/cell-phone/facebook era changing the mentality of students to be more focused…
The assumption seems to be that employers are kidding themselves by hiring mostly college grads and are paying a premium for them. So let me pose this: If a college degree truly holds little value to an employer, why aren't there leaner, meaner companies springing up hiring the 68% of students who graduated high school but didn't qualify to attend a 4-year college in the United States? Their labor costs would be significantly less than a competitor's who insists on hiring people with at least a 4-year degree.
The reason why they insist on the 4-year degree, I suspect, is that labor costs are so high in the United States that paying the premium for a 4-year degree is negligible to your bottom line, so hey, why not save yourself the time of filtering through even more resumes and just demand a bachelors degree? It's not like college is going to make anyone worse at their job. As an added bonus, people who carry debt in the form of student loans or mortgages are less likely to strike or change careers - so it's a win/win.
Re: Study: College Students Not Learning Much
#19These people are idiots. 2300 college students interviewed... Think about that for 1 minute. That's a sample of less then 10% the size of my university. There are hundreds or even thousands of schools with over 10,000 students.
Where has this sample been taken? What colleges? How diverse was the population? Socio-economic statuses? These are all big concerns I have with this statistic. Also, what are they measuring? English? Maths? Sciences?
With all the high school emphasis on getting into college, I would not expect a serious improvement in the maths and English. If it's looking at general stuff, then yes, I would not expect a substantial shift, if we're talking about fields and careers then this is shocking data.
Given all that. I am a college junior, I have learned so much about math (calculus), science, computer science and how to solve problems. More so then I ever could have dreamed. College has opened me up to many new learning opportunities.
While the fault could be at the college, more then likely; however, it's on the student, not the school.
Re: Study: College Students Not Learning Much
#20I'm not impressed that this article couldn't even make it ten words without making a major error.
Especially given the headline.