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January 18, 2011New Book Lays Failure to Learn on Colleges' DoorstepsBy David GlennA book released today makes a damning indictment of the Americanhigher-education system: For many students, it says, four years of undergraduate

classes make little difference in their ability to synthesize knowledge and putcomplex ideas on paper.The stark message from the authors of Academically Adrift: Limited Learning onCollege Campuses (University of Chicago Press) is that more than a third ofAmerican college seniors are no better at crucial types of writing and reasoning tasks than they were in their first semester of college (see excerpt).The book is already drawing its share of critics, who say the analysis fallsshort in its assessments of certain teaching and learning methods.

'ACADEMICALLY ADRIFT': Read an Excerpt From the New BookNEWS ANALYSIS: A Damning Indictment, With Plenty of CriticsCHRONICLE STUDY: At Texas Colleges, Writing Assignments Are Scarce



COMMENTARY: 'Trust Us' Won't Cut It Anymore

"We didn't know what to expect when we began this study," said Richard Arum, aprofessor of sociology at New York University who is one of the book's twoauthors. "We didn't walk into this with any axes to grind. But now that we've

seen the data, we're very concerned about American higher education and theextent to which undergraduate learning seems to have been neglected."In the new book, Mr. Arum and his co-authorâJosipa Roksa, an assistant professorof sociology at the University of Virginiaâreport on a study that has tracked anationally representative sample of more than 2,000 students who entered 24four-year colleges in the fall of 2005. The scholars do not name those 24institutions, but they say they are geographically and institutionallyrepresentative of the full range of American higher education. The sampleincludes large public flagship institutions, highly selective liberal-artscolleges, and historically black and Hispanic-serving colleges and universities.Three times in their college careersâin the fall of 2005, the spring of 2007,and the spring of 2009âthe students were asked to take the Collegiate Learning

Assessment, or CLA, a widely-used essay test that measures reasoning and writing skills. Thirty-six percent of the students saw no statistically significantgains in their CLA scores between their freshman and senior years. (The bookitself covers the students only through their sophomore year. The full four-year data are described in a separate report released today by the Social ScienceResearch Council.)And that is just the beginning of the book's bad news.The scholars also found that students devote only slightly more than 12 hoursper week to studying, on average. That might be in part because their coursessimply aren't that demanding: Most students take few courses that demandintensive writing (defined here as 20 or more pages across the semester) or

intensive reading (40 or more pages per week). Mr. Arum and Ms. Roksa's findingwas based on students' self-reports, but a new analysis of Texas syllabi by TheChronicle offers additional evidence of the same point: Business and educationmajors at public four-year colleges in Texas are typically required to take only a small number of writing-intensive courses."What concerns us is not just the levels of student performance," Mr. Arum said, "but that students are reporting that they make such meager investments instudying, and that they have such meager demands placed on them in their courses in terms of reading and writing."Another finding of the book is that racial and ethnic gaps in CLA scorespersistâand even widen, in the case of African-American studentsâover the courseof four years of college. That appears to be partly because African-Americanstudents are more likely to attend less-selective colleges with less-intenseacademic environments, the authors write.David C. Paris, executive director of the New Leadership Alliance for StudentLearning and Accountability, a two-year-old organization of college presidentsand provosts, says the book is important."It's a reminder that many of our institutions really aren't set up to makeundergraduate education a priority," he said. "The organizational systems andstructures that we have really aren't set up for 21st-century challenges."Value of Group Study QuestionedOne element of the book that is already drawing criticism is the finding that

score gains on the CLA were smaller, all else equal, if the students said theydid most of their studying with friends, as opposed to alone. That insight cutsagainst the grain of the recent trends toward collaborative and experiential



actually think that you'd find much the same pattern with subject-specificknowledge."Cultures of RigorDewayne Matthews, vice president for policy and strategy at the LuminaFoundation for Education, which supported Mr. Arum and Ms. Roksa's study, saysthat the book's findings about racial and ethnic disparities should be takenseriously by university leaders. "These continuing disparities cannot all be

explained away by looking at differences in high-school preparation," he said."We have a responsibility here. Colleges need to look much more carefully at how students learn, and how they can support that learning."Mr. Arum and Ms. Roksa don't see any simple remedies for the problems they haveidentified. They discovered more variation in CLA-score gains withininstitutions than across institutions, and they say there are no simple lessonsto draw about effective and ineffective colleges.In the statistical analysis that sums up their book, they identify twosignificant college-level variables. First, all else equal, students' CLA scores are more likely to improve if they report that faculty members at their college

have high expectations. Second, students' scores are more likely to improve ifthey say they have taken at least one writing-intensive course and at least onereading-intensive course in the previous semester.It might sound trite, Mr. Arum says, but those observations boil down to thelesson that colleges must find ways to build cultures of academic rigor. He says that task is something that each campus will need to do for itself. It would bea huge mistake, he believes, for the government to impose a newlearning-accountability regime from outside.Donna Heiland, vice president of the Teagle Foundation, which also supported the study, agrees. "Even though this is a book with a lot of sobering news," shesaid, "I think it also contains some things to be encouraged by. First of all,

it's encouraging to see new evidence that college does have an effect"âthat is,that writing-intensive and reading-intensive courses actually do improve the CLA scores of students across the ability spectrum."It would be depressing to think that students just sorted themselves intocolleges based on their SAT scores and life histories, and then essentiallymarched in place," Ms. Heiland said.Sustained DifficultiesMr. Arum and Ms. Roksa are continuing to track the students in their study, andthey are already at work on a sequel to Academically Adrift.The students who graduated on time, in 2009, have been rewarded with a miserable recessionary labor market. As of late last year, 35 percent of those recentgraduates were living with their parents or other family members, and 9 percentwere unemployed. Among those who were working full-time, only 17 percent wereearning more than $40,000 a year. (The authors have not yet done analyses todetermine how these postgraduate outcomes are correlated with the students' CLAscores or any other element of their college experiences.)Among the most troubling findings from the postgraduate survey, Mr. Arum says,is that 30 percent of the recent graduates said that they read a newspaper"monthly or never," even online."How do you sustain a democratic society," Mr. Arum said, "when large numbers of the most educationally elite sector of your population are not seeing it as anormal part of their everyday experience to keep up with the world around them?

We need higher education to take the institutional responsibility for educatingpeople broadly to see this as a basic part of civic life."That notion of institutional culture, Ms. Heiland says, is the basic lesson that



the public should take from the book. "I don't want people to walk away blamingpeople," she said. "You can say, Oh, the problem is with the students becausethey don't study enough. The problem is with the faculty because theirpriorities are elsewhere. There's truth in all that. But for me, what's reallypowerful about the book is that it talks about the culture of higher educationand talks about how the work of one player is related to the work of everyone

else. We need to talk about higher education as a system."Related ContentBook Excerpt: Are Undergraduates Actually Learning Anything?Writing Assignments Are Scarce for Students in 2 Majors at Texas CollegesCommentary: 'Trust Us' Won't Cut It AnymoreE-mailPrintComment (87)Share

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Comments1. jranelli - January 18, 2011 at 05:55 amrigor is a hard sell for the marketing office of the corpoprate college, evenharder now that the crop of faculty who are, themselves, products of thedecline, (writers of unreadable theses and unchallenging courses, curriers of

student evals needed for p&t, etc.), are ageing into department chairs and thesenior deanery.

j ranelli2. interface - January 18, 2011 at 06:52 amI concur with J. Ranelli's point. America's public schools have been failing toteach writing or critical thinking for decades; and largely thanks tocommercialization and consumerism, higher ed is failing as well. Who would havethought the day would come when it was a liability to be a rigorous teacher,given the thumbs-down by non-reading, non-studying, evaluation-completingcustomers?

And despite the "long train of impressive evidence" so beloved by nonscholars in academentia, "collaborative learning," for the most part, was a boondoggle thatcontributed to the present culture of avoiding anything that wasn'tentertaining.

Think I'll go learn how to bake bread.

3. geneseo - January 18, 2011 at 06:56 amIf 36% saw "no significant gains" between freshman and senior years, then 66%did. Where's the problem?4. geneseo - January 18, 2011 at 06:56 am

Oops. . .64%.5. debdessaso - January 18, 2011 at 07:04 amCan't say I'm all that surprised. Just ask John and Jane Q. Employer who is



spending millions of dollars on writing courses for workers because they can'twrite a decent report. As for those in academia who are harping on the creepinginfluence of the corporation on the university, perhaps someone needs to remindacademia that, after World War II, it was primarily the corporate world thatconvinced Congress to pass the various college aid programs (e.g. the G.I. Billand federal student loan programs) which fed the explosive growth in studentsattending American colleges and universities. Rather than bite the hand that

helped to create its client base, academia would do well to work with both thefor-profit and nonprofit world to design programs that prepare students tonavigate whatever type of world awaits them when they graduate.6. spsjc - January 18, 2011 at 07:34 amAll of the above certainly resonates.Just one more (snide) comment--gee, students aren't reading and writing enoughto improve their skills, especially in fields like Business and Education?Sounds like a job for the much-maligned Humanities to me, where (at least in the best classes) students do intensive reading and writing and where higher-levelthinking and mental organizational skills are valued. The Humanities may or maynot be dead, but if they are, it may be part of the reason why the entire

educational system is on life support.7. arminius - January 18, 2011 at 07:43 amI had a number of colleagues that brought "rigor" to their science classes at ahighly-selective liberal arts institution. They graduated from excellentprograms and thought that they should "raise the bar of expectations" for theirstudents. In all of the cases, NONE of them were tenured because of petty andnasty comments in their evaluations. They were counseled time after time tosoften the content of their classes. They were told that they were upsetting the legacies who could not countenance such ill-mannered behavior toward theirlittle darlings. After all, THEY were paying the salaries of these ingrates. Now I ask you -- is that the fault of the faculty or the parents who want to see

their offspring attending something like a summer camp instead of an institution of higher education.

Out of that cohort of close colleagues -- most found employment in the privatesector and one is tenure at a good school that still requires students to thinkand study.

Those of us hired in the Pleistocene could only shrug when these diktats weresent down the administrative chain of command. We continued to push hard andheld our classes in the early AM. We employed this strategy as a self-sortingstrategy -- riff raff don't want to attend 8 AM classes. Now all of us are indutch because the board, upper administration and the newer alums all want tosee how we contribute to the "bottom-line." A fourth year class with only a fewconcentrators does not make much fiscal sense to our corporate sponsors. So wehang on -- ignore the idiocy from above and understand that our days arenumbered -- they are waiting us out. I'll hold out for a few more years. I willsoon be gone.

I am noting the above because -- the lack of rigor problem has been created byhelicopter parents who believe in a culture of entitlement. They look at thefaculty as serfs.

Arum and Roksa, like most conservative critics of higher education, want toblame the faculty. They need to look at the demands of the piper.

8. eacowan - January 18, 2011 at 07:54 amAt some insitutions -- lesser ones, of course -- it has always been deemed aliability to be a rigorous professor. "We're not Harvard," is the mantra of



administrators, as it has been since long before the current intellectual miasma that is "Corporate U". I have seen some of my best (most rigorous) colleaguesmuscled out of the faculty because their little minions professed"dissatisfaction" with certain professors' teaching. In the latest terms, thismeans the "customers" (read: students) are not happy. And that is all there isto it. --E.A.C.

9. interface - January 18, 2011 at 07:58 amWhere's the problem? I'd say in a 64% success rate. Should a doctor with a 64%success rate stay in business? Or a hairdresser, for that matter?10. mffeuerst - January 18, 2011 at 08:41 amarminius's comments are on target. Teaching evaluations, the loss of humanities, and the absolute need for critical reading and writing are just 'evaluated out'of the classroom by students who come with few incentives and a need to getthrough their education as quickly as possible.11. rsamuels - January 18, 2011 at 08:41 amMy experience is that professors often have no incentive to motivate studentlearning and non-tenured faculty are often controlled by student evaluations, so

they try to please the students or teach in a defensive manner. Since there islittle real quality control in higher ed, administrators can pour money into pet projects and star faculty and staff and no one complains. I have asked mystudents if they had the choice between learning nothing and the school rankings going up or learning a lot, but the rankings go down, and half would prefer tolearn nothing because they all want to go to med school or law school. It isclear that the more students pay, the less they get in return. We need to findsome way to force schools to care about learning and teaching.12. dank48 - January 18, 2011 at 08:53 amGore Vidal was right.

13. billinmidwest - January 18, 2011 at 09:02 amMy observation of undergraduate education in recent years does seem to parallela comment above about the withering of Humanities programs in American culture.I have noticed that high school textbooks in foreign languages, for example,over the past forty years have split one year of traditional work into twoyears, thus missing almost half of the material. This deficiency is difficult to make up for at the college level. If students (high school and college levels)detest reading and prefer i-pods/cell phones in order to fill empty hours, thenperhaps they're in the wrong place in higher education. Moreover, the businessmodel of colleges is certainly a contributing factor. Punitive measures againstfaculty who demand excellent results in the classroom does so to the manifestdetriment of a college ultimately. Another valid point made in these posts isthat over time the weaker students are rising into administrative and facultypositions, thus further debilitating the academic foundations. While I do nothave an easy answer, my intuition tells me that many people go to college whoshould not, and that by contrasting students of 60+ years ago with contemporarygroups, there are striking differences: Excellent students of the early 20thoften studied two-four years of Latin and mathematics, as well as other areas of the liberal arts. There are no easy gimmicks to learning these subjects, and bynature of their intrinsic rigor, it separates the men from the boys.14. alleyoxenfree - January 18, 2011 at 09:16 amThis is also why music majors tend to be good students across the board in other

subjects - they know what discipline it, and that practice gets results. Plus,their brains are wired for language and structure in a way that few others are.



The consumer/entitlement culture is also a product of the decline in tenurelines. When "retention" and "student success" is king, adjunct faculty arepressured to have high pass rates in classes, which inevitably leads to dumbingdown curriculum and passing students who should otherwise repeat the class.

A third factor is that most colleges have eliminated critical thinking coursesfrom their curriculum, along with the decline of more upper-division philosophy

courses. One critical thinking course, with attention to logical fallacies,argument structure, and inductive/deductive logic, straightens thinking andprepares them for writing in a way that few other courses can. But there isconstant pressure from STEM faculty to eliminate such courses under the guise of "our curriculum is just so tight there's no time for that" (or for upperdivision writing, or reasonably small writing courses, or for a music class).15. mkant69 - January 18, 2011 at 09:18 amA 64% learning success rate is actually pretty good compared with the 57%six-year graduation rate. Or perhaps one statistic is the cause of the other?16. mmccllln - January 18, 2011 at 09:22 am

I would find it interesting to know the majors of those who improved and thosewho did not. Only business and education majors are singled out in this story.I'm betting that humanities majors improved over time. In higher education'srush to appease the marketplace, the timeless skill of writing has been tossedon the garbage pile of 'old-fashioned ideas.' Show me someone who can speak andwrite clearly and I'll show you someone who will be successful in almost anyfield.17. quidditas - January 18, 2011 at 09:26 am"Another valid point made in these posts is that over time the weaker studentsare rising into administrative and faculty positions, thus further debilitatingthe academic foundations."

Weak students rise into faculty positions too, huh? Why is that, do you think?

I'm being serious.18. instconsult - January 18, 2011 at 09:29 amI am surprised that no one has questioned the reliance on the CLA as a primaryinstrument for measuring students' learning. Which CLA essays did the studentscomplete? They are not all comparable and there are plenty of credible edresearchers who question the instrument.19. i_am_nomad - January 18, 2011 at 09:35 amOkay, just noticing this right off the bat:

"...is that more than a third of American college seniors are no better atcrucial types of writing and reasoning tasks than they were in their firstsemester of college."

Perhaps more than a third of all college students do not really belong incollege? Why can't we just come to terms with that stark reality?20. cdwickstrom - January 18, 2011 at 09:36 amIf anyone wants hard evidence of the problems, noted above, consider this. As as adjunct at a Carnegie doctoral level institution, I was advised by a dean thatstudents were complainng that my reading demands were too high. Instead of thenormal 2-inch notebook sized set of chapter and article reprints that my peershad been requiring, I had the audacity to expect the students to read five WHOLE

books in a full semester of 15 weeks. Oh, yes, this was a GRADUATE level course. I got the message and cut the load to three books, and still got complaints



about reading load expectations on my evals.21. softshellcrab - January 18, 2011 at 10:09 amIt is all about "just say no". "No, that isn't good enough. Do it over." Or "No, not good enough. You fail." But since the majority of schools live in fear oflosing studens, they will not "just say no".

Sister Maria in my 6th grade class understood how to say "no" quite well.

Until schools set high standards and - much, much, much more important enforcethem with rigorous grading - nothing else will get fixed.

And yes, many students are going to college who don't belong there. And thecolleges are only too quick to dumb down the standards to them.22. joechill - January 18, 2011 at 10:16 amI agree with the general gist of the comments that if there is a curriculumproblem, it rests on the facts that the humanities are missing and that studentevaluations have been the only way teachers have been measured.

23. dkdemers - January 18, 2011 at 10:27 amVery interesting findings and they jell with my experience as a professor.Another factor that I believe is contributing to the problem is the studentevaluation of faculty process. Faculty who have high standards and demands areoften punished in student evaluations, as research shows that students takepersonal credit when they do well in a course but they often blame others whenthey perform poorly. Because student evaluations are often the major measure ofa teacher's performance, some professors are reluctant to put the bar higher.24. 11261897 - January 18, 2011 at 10:28 amDon't overlook the matter of composition teaching's being taken over by"specialists" who focus on process rather than product, thereby divorcingwriting from its chief goal: communication of data

25. tay192 - January 18, 2011 at 10:32 amThis seems all too simple. What are the details? "Crucial types of writing andreasoning tasks"? "Crucial" in what context? As some of the comments suggest,this may be a symptom much larger troubles. This means that solutions such ashiring a new "associate dean of crucial types of writing and reasoning tasks" is not necessary. Nor is it necessary to "crack down" on professors, requiring more office hrs per week and less time on "research." Vague observations seem toserve only the usual go-around about teaching v. research, good teachers v. lazy students, cable t.v. time v. library time. I'd like to see some actual "causeand effect" before the flurry of fixes begin flying.26. billinmidwest - January 18, 2011 at 10:34 amWhy could it be that weaker students eventually rise to prominent positions incollege? I'm guessing, but the process of academic evolution may have madeancient relics or dinosaurs out of highly qualified individuals. The pushtowards the business model may attract business-minded people who themselves may not value academic rigor. If teaching, scholarly endeavor and service to theuniversity are three major criteria for promotion, wherein service to theuniversity translates into a campaign for money, then could it be that by a form of natural selection, the first two criteria exclude the more optimal choicesfor promotion? If it is true, as these posts indicate, that the general student

population is less than it should be, then will the pool of highly qualifiedpeople for higher positions begin to shrink over time? If success of a professor



is measured by popularity on evaluations and not by rigor (wherein rigor ispunished), then who is at the top setting such standards? American culture ismore about "doing" than "being," but how good is that?27. asnyder0827 - January 18, 2011 at 10:35 amAs a graduate of a liberal arts college, I agree that higher ed should have agreater emphasis on the humanities and writing. I was a history major, reading40 pages + for each class and writing long papers.

But, I learned writing and reading skills in high school. I learned about theimportance of independence and rigor in college. Students are graduating fromhigh school with negligible writing and speaking skills. Colleges can't make upall that lost ground.

28. davidphaney - January 18, 2011 at 10:39 amFaculty members are oftern criticized by administrators for having high failurerates, especially in introductory classes. However, it is an error to interpretthat criticism as a demand for less rigor. Students will rise to the challengeof rigorous course work if it is taught well, and they will fail courses thatbore them with low expectations. I was provost at an institution where the math

department successfully increased both rigor and pass rates in introductorycourses by changing the pedagogy.29. csgirl - January 18, 2011 at 10:40 am"One critical thinking course, with attention to logical fallacies, argumentstructure, and inductive/deductive logic, straightens thinking and prepares them for writing in a way that few other courses can. But there is constant pressurefrom STEM faculty to eliminate such courses "So you don't think there is critical thinking in STEM courses? Hmm, so I guessmathematical reasoning isn't really thinking? How about problem-solving?Sorry, this kind of fallacy - that only the humanities can teach criticialthinking - just makes me bananas.30. demery1 - January 18, 2011 at 10:46 am

I am shocked, shocked that for many Chronicle readers, new information confirmsalready held beliefs. For most folks who study learning, we might worry about aconfirmation bias....31. isugeezer - January 18, 2011 at 10:53 amMore often than you'd like to believe, my freshmen say to me, "How could I get a D? I thought you liked me!" or, "I'll bring you a candy bar each day for someextra credit" or "Why can't I use my cell 'phone in class? My other teachersdid." These statements tell me something about the students' relationships withtheir high school teachers. My freshmen are often stunned to learn that this isnot how it's going to be. They think I'm "mean." Frequently, they tell me thatdirectly. I've learned to respond this way: "I may be the first real teacheryou've had."32. victorl - January 18, 2011 at 11:24 am"...to make undergraduate education a priority" is NOT a 21-century priority ofHigher Education. It's not even something new. It's what colleges anduniversities do. Imagining that this is some brand-new "21-century priority,"probably plays in to imagining that some 21-century technological geegaw orjimcrak is going to fix the problem. Give them clickers, new tablet computers,or embed microchips in their skulls ... anything but actually improveundergraduate education and make it a priority. 20 pages of writing A SEMESTER!? Sheesh.33. 11327278 - January 18, 2011 at 11:25 amI challenge the assertion that "reading the newspaper" allows one to "keep up

with the world around them". Most newspapers are now no better than advertisingfishwrappers, and there are multiple other ways to 'keep up',some of which mayvery well have been adopted by the student population group in question. The



assumptions behind such out-of-date measurement techniques need examining.34. alexmcintosh44 - January 18, 2011 at 11:27 amI tell me students when describing the course requirements that unless many oftheir courses have individual (not group) writing assignments, they are beingcheated. There are some instances in which a group assignment is useful, butthey are outnumbered by those that require individual effort.35. lisacs - January 18, 2011 at 11:31 am

"The scholars do not name those 24 institutions, but they say they aregeographically and institutionally representative of the full range of Americanhigher education. The sample includes large public flagship institutions, highly selective liberal-arts colleges, and historically black and Hispanic-servingcolleges and universities."

Ummm... community colleges?36. sabbatical - January 18, 2011 at 11:35 amBased on actual experience -- mine (professor) and my son's (college student) -- most of the comments so far resonate.

My experience: Students who haven't learned how to write a complete sentence,much less formulate a paragraph. Faculty colleagues who are penalized when theytry something new in teaching, whether it's more rigorous or just experimental,because course evaluations include negative remarks.

My son's experience: a 5-credit "writing course" that only met four hours aweek, and where two of those hours involved students sitting in groups,"critiquing" each other's work. My son's conclusion? "Totally worthless." Ofcourse it was.37. lothlorien - January 18, 2011 at 11:36 amJust an observation on writing. As an adjunct teaching five or six classes asemester to try to make a livine, you have a choice of 3-4 page papers or 4-5

page papers. Two papers or three papers. And an average of 50 students perclass. Add to that students who desire quick feedback over extensive feedback,and you quickly see the problem. That same instructor with one TA and tenure has far less of a workload. Nowadays, the former is more the rule than the latter.38. rgregory - January 18, 2011 at 12:02 pm@ interface and geneseo - How about a product with 64% market share? We aren'tdealing with the concrete product of a doctor or a hairdresser. That is part ofwhat is wrong with the current climate of academic accountability - one solution fits all. We must all be using collaborative learning; The CLA is the one andonly measure of student achievement; Retention is the ultimate metric. We aren't dealing with a math problem with an expected correlation coefficient of 1.000.This is social research, a field where finding a factor responsible for 40% ofthe variance is considered a strong correlation. 64% would be great, if thatwere, in fact, the result of the remainder of the question. My guess is that itis not. Having NO significant gains is still pretty poor at 36% (although ourcurrent approach of admitting everyone to college would seem to suggest that 36% might not be that unreasonable), the real question is what does the distribution look like? If 36% fail to gain anything and 64% get all the learning we wouldlike them to have, then we have a rather small problem. But if the median gainis only 50% of the learning we think is appropriate, then the problem is much

larger. If no one achieves the learning we wish them to have, we have an evenlarger one. In other words, the 36% is not likely to be the issue - it is,rather, where the remaining 64% fall.



Of course, the CLA is not the be all and end all test of student achievement.The critics are in part correct to question whether major-specific learning isdifferent than over-all critical thinking skill. The CLA does not measureknowledge accumulation nor does it directly measure the students' ability tomanipulate that knowledge. It is a cognitive function test built around thestudents ability to think, integrate, and argue for or against certain concepts

that the authors think are sufficiently general that something meaningful cancome of it all. Yet it is taken by these sociologists as the only measure ofworth in collegiate education. There is no reason to suspect that a chemistrystudent, for instance, would score well on a test written around the idea ofcrime reduction (the example used on the CLA website to demonstrate thearchitecture of the test), nor would I expect that such a result would bodepoorly for that student's future in the field. I think the idea that these twocan indict all of higher education because one test suggests that they aren'tlearning the associated skills of creative writing and critical thinking is aserious stretch.39. edison - January 18, 2011 at 12:14 pmUnfortunately, education is one of those careers where "the harder you work, the

less you make." Since there are so many classes taught by adjunct instructions,where is the incentive to assign lengthly papers which require hours to assessand grade? Let's face it, the business model of most colleges and universitiesdoes not support this type of assignment.40. bedros - January 18, 2011 at 12:21 pmConfusion reigns, much of it placed at the doorstep of the politicians. Primaryand secondary educational performance is measured by standardized testing,presupposing an eternally fixed body of knowledge. Challenging this body ofknowledge, critical thinking is to be dismissed. "Thinking inside the box,"however, uncritical thinking is to be dismissed, subplanted by criticalthinking. Critical thinking being difficult to measure, when performance need be

measured, it cannot be the subject of measurement. As so, uncritical thinkingneed supplant critical thinking to satisfy the requirement of measurement.

Additionally, students in institutions of higher education are to bematriculated in four years. This when legislatures have radically cutappropriations for higher education, transfering funding to the student throughtuition. Tuition being raised, students need work part time to fund theireducation. Working part time, they matriculate in five years. A four yearmatriculation requirement being imposed by legislatures, insofar as the standard is not met, higher education institutions are perceived as under performing.Doing so, funding is cut in punishment, reducing classes, lengthening thematriculation period, etc.

Challenged by contradictories, higher education cannot succeed. What bodes is acollapse in the institution.41. 3rdtyrant - January 18, 2011 at 12:39 pmOn a positive note--not that I disgree in any part with the many accurateobservations of how corporatizing universities makes them far, far worse thanever--in my advanced composition course, I am teaching the Trivium andQuadrivium, much to the majority of the class's delight. I had a student say tome, "my brain is on fire with this stuff--I can see it everywhere." Manystudents are made dumb by the operators of the panopticon because they trust the institution to do as it says it will: provide a liberal arts education. When

that is finally laid before them, they devour it like starving men. Smallwonder, when what they have been fed is an outcome-based, bottom-lineddisprizing of the best ideas. They have gravitated to the lowest common



denominator: market based value.

That's pathetic in the classical and modern senses of the word.42. moongate - January 18, 2011 at 12:41 pm"non-tenured faculty are often controlled by student evaluations"

I am now a classified staff worker, but before, when I was an adjunct teaching

writing, I did everything in my power to make sure my evals were sterling. Itaught well, but I also made sure my students were happy, whatever that took,and that included passing the half of the class I would flunked.43. cava3664 - January 18, 2011 at 12:53 pmI am not surprised! "Declining by Degrees" is reinforced by this study.Buckminster44. pacifica888 - January 18, 2011 at 01:05 pmThe comments about staffing issues are well made, as so many introductorywriting courses are now staffed by part-time instructors who must race to make a living. That's a nation-wide problem that has emerged from the factory mode ofteaching the course, sending money mostly to English literature faculty who

teach upper echelon courses. The problem is NOT process pedagogy, which, counter to 11261897's claim, can and does focus on final products, too. At myinstitution FYC is taught by all tenure-line faculty on a regular basis, and wefocus on both process and product.

Sabbatical: it sounds like your son just got in a lousy class. Five creditscould possibly be appropriate for four hours a week, IF the peer reviews wereset up and managed properly. I use this technique in virtually every writingclass I teach and it works wonders, but only with very, very carefulapplication. It teaches writers the production of writing from a reviewer'sperspective--which they will encounter in large doses in the workplace (I'vedone tons of workshops there, too)--and it can also help writers expand their

understandings of audience beyond that of the instructor alone. I'm surprised by the "of course" in your comment. Sounds way too smug for someone who isapparently not in the profession of teaching writing.45. czander - January 18, 2011 at 01:08 pmMaybe we force too many kids to go to college. consider the high dropout rate46. jtran8424 - January 18, 2011 at 01:09 pmI got my chance to go to college when I was a single mother got laid off for not sleeping with a collegue who was not even my boss, unemployment got the companyto give me a two year departing gift for not sueing them and the lady told me to go to college with that money, and at 37 I went to college. I got a C inVollyball, but I graduated with a 7 year old summa cum laude and was classroommom all 3 years with 190 credits for my BA. Then I went on to graduate school in a 54 credit program to teach special ed all, kinds called VaryingExceptionalities and graduated with a GPA of 3.97, and the Dean really wanted me to go on and get my Ph.D. but my loans were big enough, and I wanted to work for a while before I retired =). I had bipolar disorder, post traumatic stressdisorder, paranoid schizophrenia, add, severe depression, anxiety disorder, andall kinds of professors none of whom knew I had any disabilities because I knewthey would be harder on me to get me to quit, and I wasn't going to.

Now I went to college with a lot of sleepers, drinkers, talkers, texters, cellphoners, and what immediately came to my mind was the incredible rudeness of



coming to a classroom with someone with a Ph.D. and showing this kind ofdisrespect to someone who is trying to teach you something important enough that you need to take this class or chose to for a college degree. I know I was a lot older, but civility is civility. And if you didn't pass the test, it was yourown dam fault. This notion that you need to entertain the students is

rediculous. College is not supposed to be entertaining, it is supposed to beeducating and if you're not looking to get educated then do something else, butdon't bother other people who are in the class who want to hear the professor to take notes because they want to learn what the professor is teaching. Stopblaming the professors!!! Its the students, stupid!!!

I remember one class in Humanities with a Dr. Tiffany who went through collegeto his Ph.D. in a wheelchair, and there were some talkers near me, and I toldthem myself if they wanted to talk, take it outside, I wanted to learn. Andthere were a couple of drinkers passing the bottle back and forth, and I satnext to them during an early class, and I told them quite out loud that the

smell of vodka was more than I could take and could they please stop drinking in class or don't come to class to drink. Some girls at the back of class talkingand cellphoning, I turned around and told them that their talking was toodistracting for me. If they had the gaul to take advantage of a stationaryprofessor who could not go up and down the aisles in his wheelchair, I was going to monitor the class for him, and after about 4 classes, the students got themessage that I, just a student, but like I told them, I paid as much as they did for that class, and I was going to learn it, and if they didn't want to, signthe roll and leave but don't mess with my education. And after those firstclasses, they either came in, signed the roll and left, or the stayed and shut

up, and didn't drink and didn't sleep, because I would embarass them if theydid, if Professor Tiffany couldn't get around to tell them to leave, then Iwould, and I got quite a reputation after that class. I couldn't believe thatthey would take advantage of a professor in a wheelchair, like that.

Its administration that let's the students run the college because theadministration fears the parents, heck, let the parents complain, let them taketheir prissy children out of college and find one that day cares the kids, butthat is how our secondary educational system becomes poorer and poorer. Let thekids fear the college like they should be doing, especially at public schools,set the example. Gosh, before my late husband died, my son was going to BostonCollege, and you didn't dare give lip to anyone, even the receptionist or themaintenance persons. That's fear, that's respect, and Boston College expects itand tolerates nothing less. So when he had to transfer to the University ofFlorida and got work study, he was appalled at the behavior of the students.With my MA in Special Ed, my specialty and Thesis in mentally ill/emotionallydisturbed, I could watch my students at PE, and the Coach would hit on them forthe same behavior of other students, everyone would, so I never left their side, I had lunch with them, watch PE, Art, and Music with them, and really, theircrises were not that frequent, and I suppose it might have been the calmingeffect I had on them because, according to my assistant, who, for the first half of my first year, would tell me horror stories about how they behaved, so I just

took over all the time, and that gave her plenty of time to gossip about me tothe principal and the ladies in the office, which she did, and some incrediblestories she told, because over the 8 years I taught there, the faculty became



friends of mine and would tell me her newest gossip, so I knew, but worse, theprincipal would believe this incredible gossip, and I was ready for it. And notonly did I have to deal with mentally ill K-3 students and help their parents to deal with their children and regain confidence in themselves as parents, give my students opportunities to shine, win history contests, be community helpers by

visiting the elderly in the nursing home up the street singing in both Englishand Spanish (Yes, they were learning in Spanish so whenever anyone referred tothem as the Special Class,they were darn tootin', they were the only class inschool who could speak Spanish), and they were so loving, put on programs andplays for the school, do a clothing drive for the homeless, man you couldn'tbelieve how these kids would work for others, but still the principal got allthis gossip about things happening in my class, what can you do, and she was achurch going holy Christian, you see you can be blighted by so many people whohave powers you cannot even see. Like the INDEPENDENT and GREEDY post presidentof the local college, who had been taking advantage of the budget for years, had 29 vice presidents who were friends of his, paid himself for sick and vacation

days he said he never took in 10 years when he was finally let go by the board,my goodness his package to be let go was worth so much, but it also meant thatthe packages of all 29 vp's would be re-negotiated and cut that a public college of that size did not a quarter of those vp's, and when his closest vp who laidoff all of us professors in one department that they closed, and said he wouldhelp us all find jobs in other departments, and I suppose I was the stupid onefor believing him, and when he said just make an appointment, and I did, and Imust have been the only one, and when I got there and he said to sit down andget comfortable, he didn't even bother to close the door when he began to jumpat me and tell me, "well what do you expect me to do, create a job?" and I wasfloored, he was the one to say "come to me" and I did and I was getting yelledat, so much for help!!! And you know, once you have been a professor at a

college, well, nobody seems to want to hire you to do anything, bag groceries,serve food through a window, open letters, cashiers, stock shelves or racks, not a chance, they just look at you with funny eyes and wonder what kind of crimeyou committed.

Well, that's off topic, but I thought amusing, but in any case, yeah, I got myshare of, "so what are you going to do about it?" until I learned from the Dean, appropriate participation is part of your grade, and he never really describedwhat "appropriate" meant, and so they walked on eggshells...that's whatexperience teaches you. So, I say, let experience season these professors whoare trying to "please" their students with entertaining classes. I saw "The Dead Poet's Society", too. And my son had at UF a professor who would dress up forclass for Law, if you can believe it. I had a second major in business, and Ican tell you neither in my English or Business majors did anyone dress incostume, but at the same time, I can tell you that two of my professors inEnglish had taught poetry long enough to translate the poetry in theirrecitation of it, and there is nothing as wonderful as poetry well recited.While that is education, that is also romantic and there is within theexplication of literature, even essays, a romance with the spoken word, whichmath professors will disagree, where they find their romance with the writtennumbers...

Well, be it numbers or words, if we let the students take over the colleges anduniversities, and make the professors come to class in costume, with Rocky andBullwinkle teaching us the Laws of Physics, we, as a society, are doomed. When



my son wanted a toy every time we went to the supermarket and I was still onlyan undergrad, I went right from my 55 mile commute from the university to thesupermarket and then home to put away the food and then to the school'saftercare to pick him up and about 3 weeks later, he asked me, Mom, why don't we go shopping anymore, why aren't we running out of food, he was 5 then, and Isaid, you aren't going shopping anymore, but I am. And he thought about this a

little bit, and then he asked, why am I not shopping anymore?, and I said,because everytime I took you shopping, you always asked for a toy, and if Ididn't get you one, you made a big deal about it, and, you know what, I wasembarassed about that, to have a young gentleman with me who would make a bigdeal about not getting a toy everytime we went to the store, so I shopped before I picked you up. And so he thought about that, and he asked, could I go to thestore with you if I didn't make a big deal about getting a toy? And I said, youthink about it really hard, because that's a big boy decision for a young man to make, and then you tell me tomorrow morning, ok? And the next morning, he said,I'm ready to make a big boy decision, and I won't make a big deal about a toy.

So, we went shopping after school, and we didn't go near the toy aisle, and when we got to the register, he said, see, Mom, I can be a big boy.

Well, that's what we have to ask our college applicants, if they can be big boys and big girls, because college isn't for kids. And when they sign thatapplication, they need to know what they are signing, that they will berespectful to faculty, staff, and everybody who works at the college, that theywill come into class ready to learn, that they will turn their cell phones OFF,that they will not text during class, that they will do their reading andhomework assignments, that they will take notes, that they will study for quizes

and tests, that they will not drink before or during class, that they will nottalk during class without the permission of the professor and when they talk, it will be pertinent to the class, and that they will remember what they learnedabout about being nice, kind, and thoughtful that they learned in kindergarten.And if they sign the application, then they accept the above mentioned rules ofadult college student behavior, and practice them on and off campus as arepresentative of the school as long as they are a student at above namedcollege or university and be proud students who will keep up the reputation ofthe school, and never get arrested for any behavior against the law, or engagein any behavior that could put the name of the school at any risk for theirreputation.

Now, that's talking RESPONSIBILITY, and if they don't think that they can livewith those rules, heck, maybe you don't need their kind, anyway, no matter howhigh their high school GPA that their parents bought for them, or the fantastick letters of recommendation that their parents also bought for them. And mean it.When the first few students are asked to leave, your school's reputation willjump 3 letter grades. You have a school to run, and its your duty to maintainthe honor of that school, not run a Micky Mouse university. Be as Big as youwant to be, and it begins with RESPECT. Amen.

47. drspektor - January 18, 2011 at 01:32 pminterface (#9) wrote: "Where's the problem? I'd say in a 64% success rate.

Should a doctor with a 64% success rate stay in business? Or a hairdresser, forthat matter?"



students teaching them a single genre of writing. My daughter, who has both alaw degree and an academic master's, says that the most important thing shederived from her B.A. and M.A. education was the ability to discriminate between the kind of analysis and presentation needed for different purposes anddifferent audiences. So she can write a bullet-pointed memo for a C.E.O. or thepress, but she can also do the 35-page analysis that supports the points--and

without which all you have is PR!

51. dboyles - January 18, 2011 at 03:42 pm"The scholars also found that students devote only slightly more than 12 hoursper week to studying, on average. That might be in part because their coursessimply aren't that demanding..."What at some institutions is an insatiable student thirst for knowledge inchemistry courses is at others a hopelessly uphill battle against the "just tell me what I have to know for the next exam" mentality. Once this latter has itsfoot in the door it's a race to the bottom among faculty trying to outdothemselves for good student opinion surveys. What to do when an administration

averts their eyes from this sorry state of affairs?

52. 513131g - January 18, 2011 at 03:51 pmYes. To the comments that point out why there is a lack of rigor in the collegeclassroom today, one need only look to the "Business model" being imposed uponhigher education. 1)The heavy emphasis on student evaluations for promotion andtenure: absolutely the stupidest trend I have witnessed. 2)The emphasis onretention to keep "FTE" numbers high often means the softening of classroomstandards. 3)The trend toward eliminating full-time, tenure-track positions infavor of adjunct instructors who must depend on high evaluation numbers to getre-hired from semester to semester. Why is anyone surprised at the conclusionsdrawn in this book? Add to this the decades of dumbing down of the average

American, the demonization of intellect and culture in favor of celebrating thelowest common denominator, and you have a recipe for an empire not only indecline, but heading toward collapse. We can all comment until we are blue, andI will wager it won't make one bit of difference. Every sector of society islocked in its own echo chamber of fear, panic and blame, and so far few areinclined to engage in intelligent discourse that will lead to real solutions.Everyone wants to quickly find a scapegoat, apply a superficial and probablydisastrous "quick fix," and go back to sleep. Meanwhile, I have to get back tomy seven syllabi which emphasize reading, writing, and being curious,passionate, and engaged in the culture around you. I teach the Humanities, andTheatre: playwriting, acting, voice and movement, and I try to tell everystudent I encounter that it takes a whole human being, able to communicateorally, in writing, and with the whole physical instrument to make a goodcitizen and a good leader, and sometimes even a great artist. And, around thecountry colleges are cutting their humanities programs, foreign languages, thearts. I wouldn't expect too much from "education reform," if the products of our sad system are the very ones formulating the reformation. Lunatics running theasylum anyone?53. walkerst - January 18, 2011 at 04:16 pmCreating a culture of academic rigor is difficult when so many students areeither barely literate or functionally illiterate. My spouse taught for 20years, at everything from community colleges to major research universities, and he just left teaching because he could no longer stand the decline in the

students. When he began, the students mostly read the readings, did theassignments, and could write with sufficient skill that he could at leastunderstand what they were saying. Over time, everything slipped. The last time



he taught (a literature course), no one read the readings, not even 5-6 pageshort stories. As for writing, well, their work was essentiallyincomprehensible. He taught composition courses too - and these were students in college, who had no idea what a noun or verb or thesis statement might be. It'sjust too frustrating. And yes, he was always rated a top professor and gotterrific evaluations, but it took too much of a toll on him. He ended up

hospitalized more than once, and two years ago, with my full support, he quit afull-time position. Rare as those are, it wasn't worth his health. By the time a student gets to college, it's too late to teach basic literacy, at a level theyshould have learned in about grade 5. Start fixing the education system a lotearlier.54. mainiac - January 18, 2011 at 04:23 pm"....How do you sustain a democratic society," Mr. Arum said, "when largenumbers of the most educationally elite sector of your population are not seeing it as a normal part of their everyday experience to keep up with the worldaround them?

Democracy is doomed; the US is lurching to the chicom model of totalitariancontrolled "free enterprise."55. americanist40 - January 18, 2011 at 04:56 pmClass size--hello? Is there anything in the report that sifts the data onstudent success according to class size?56. rice80 - January 18, 2011 at 05:07 pmI worked in college for many years (1980s-90s), often in a TA or adjunctcapacity. I taught classes upwards of 35 students at times. The classes I taught were writing-intensive. There are numerous problems now, from grade inflation to less-demanding classes, and as many here have pointed out, they often come from

parent or corporate pressure (and then both complain over poorer training). Anumber here crticize evaluations. The problem is not evaluations per se, but the way they are conducted and handled. When I taught, evaluations were both written and required. Various data were included, such as expected grade, in order to(potentially) measure the validity of a complaint. Now, evaluations are oftendone online. They are not required. And the questions do not necessarily require certain information. This means that students who complain are likely the onesto fill out the evaluations. In other words: no accountability. Satisfiedstudents have other things they prefer/need to do (such as studying currentclasses). Therefore, the percentage of negative reviews is likely to be higher.Politicians love to talk about accountability, but our culture treats it like abad word. Or, it's important to be accountable, but "not me." Onceaccountability is across the board, then you will see these scores improve.57. anonscribe - January 18, 2011 at 05:57 pmWeird: writing, reading, and studying a lot help you learn? Who would havethought!

I echo most of the sentiments here. If you want students to learn moreeffectively, end/reform student evaluations and require more writing-intensivecourses. If my career didn't depend so much on evals, I'd gladly grade harderand assign more work.58. msehphdjd - January 18, 2011 at 07:50 pm

"...only 17 percent were earning more than $40,000 a year."

Only?



Given that "a starting lawyer with less than a year of experience averages$45,854 to $69,378 annually" and that many faculty with terminal degrees startin the mid-50s, "only" seems a bit of an odd choice of descriptor.

That one in six graduates is making more that $40K sounds pretty darn good tome.

Other than that, I agree with much of what is described about what students aregetting out of their education. However, I don't think anyone should be quick to lay blame on the institutions. I'm so tired of students sending me messages from their smartphones to say that they can't afford the book...

And one more thing - tenured faculty can be "controlled by student evaluations," too.59. trendisnotdestiny - January 18, 2011 at 09:21 pm

So many insightful comments that deserve more attention and response.One issue that keeps chewing at my synapses involves reconciling how oureconomic objectives (the needs of capital in global marketplace) and theindividual needs of incoming students (critical thinking, reading comprehensionand learning pedagogy).

It is a this intersection that I believe Tony Benn has made the case (as manycomments inthis thread do as well) that there is a tension between healthy, well educated and reflective students and many of the economic policies that arepursued among G-8 countries (privatization, de-regulation, huge debt loads andthe free flow of capital).

We have to ask the question, do market-based solutions 'thin out the herd'(Lippman) during a period of peak resource extraction and the information age.In a technologically fast-paced world of informational asymmetries and hiddenfinancial interests, it is incumbent upon the professorate to consider in the US that our increasingly poor health, difficulty with academic processes ofreading, writing, math and science and the complete absorption of the consumermodel (conceived by Bernays) have been purposeful constructions.

How else do we conceive of the repeal of Glass-Steagall, Corporate Monopolies(TBTF), Unjustified escalations in tuition and healthcare inflation, and Gutting the promises of the social safety net (often illuminating some sort of fraud,mispent resources, redundancies and wasteful spending by all parties).

Making connection between our (systemic)economic selves and our institutionswhere development is supposed to occur is a good start....60. chroniclebarnacle - January 19, 2011 at 05:23 amMany fine points were made here. The problem is so vast that it is a bitdifficult to get my head around it. We should look at the problem from different perspectives. I think the problem began when we dumb-downed the curriculum toallow unqualified students in the system because test scores were so low. I also

think it is a social or culture issue. When Americans could make it on oneincome in the family, the other parent was able to spend time actually raisingthe children. Today's family structure is different now. I was lucky- my mother



made me sit down eah night and spent time with me going over my homework. Whodoes that today and why not? Lastly I see that some institution are concernedwith student retention because of their business model and do put pressure onfaculty to ease the work load. So where do we start to begin the fix? Thesolution would require a return to values of a past era. Pandora's Box has beenopened...61. mrmars - January 19, 2011 at 06:54 am

Money is tighter than ever, so we compete for students (customers?) morefiercely than ever before. To attract them you need to make nice withcountry-club style facilities, all sorts of creature comforts in the dorms, andcoffee shops in what used to be a library reading room (books?), all of whichdrives up costs even more.

AND you need to keep them HAPPY, or they'll leave (and take their $ with them)!

Add to this the horribly misguided ethic that EVERYONE - regardless ofmotivation or ability - MUST go to college to be a success (and/or for thecountry to be competitive, etc.) and you are approaching a "perfect storm" ofacademic disfunctionality.

To sustain the charade (i.e the cash flow), happiness must be insured at allcosts, so faculty are evaluated (re-hired, granted tenure and promoted - or not) mainly on the basis of customer satisfaction which - in what must surely be oneof the most illogical fallacies of all time - is automatically equated witheducational effectiveness (in a system that should involve the faculty memberimposing rigorous standards of achievement no less?!).

And we wonder why the enterprise is failing? Maybe it's our critical thinkingskills that are suspect.

And for icing on the cake, we have educational "experts" preaching that

learning, which has always been first and foremost an INDIVIDUAL pursuit ( lastI looked I only have one mind and its not normally in telepathic contact withanyone else's), MUST be approached from a group effort/ student self-directedperspective. So if you don't include a liberal dose of group projects, classroom discussions, and student-centered "discovery" exercises in your classes youcan't possibly be doing it right. The fact that none of these methods was invogue years ago when a college education had to be earned and was actually worth something is evidently irrelevant, and the huge time inefficiencies involved -not to mention the opportunities for factual error and misdirection - evidentlyare of no consequence either.

There was a time when a college education WAS generally effective for those whowere admitted based on a record of achievement and/or evidence of potential, and who earned the right to stay and graduate through motivation and sustainedpersonal effort. This glaring fact is always left out of present daydiscussions.

There are no mysteries here, only colossal failures of logic and memory. Toomany colleges chasing too few "students" with too little motivation in a society that provides too little money while imposing unrealistic expectations.62. jim_falcone - January 19, 2011 at 07:41 am

The issue of student desire to understand the boundaries of responsibility foran upcoming exam is not a new one. I always told my students in my 1st yearchemistry courses my recollection from a first year English course in



1964...student rises days before our first hourly and asks, "For what materialwill we be responsible on the upcoming exam?" Professor peers over the top ofhis glasses (down from the platfrom on which he sat at his desk) and says, "Foreverything you have learned in your entire existance."....end of discussion!The issue of critical thinking while critical will be problematic until one candefine the meaning...it seems to be one of those "I know it when I observe it"issues. We assess our chemistry curriculum with the ETS-MFT and have scored at

92%tile in this area without conscious effort to place our majors in so-calledcritical thinking classes.On another point, generally, those choosing to take chemistry in their firstsemester were among the best students in HS, but number of DWFs (students withless than C grades or withdrawals) in first semster classes are generally in the 30-40% range..about the same result as this study...it seems that our rigorsorts them out earlier.I could go on..but bottom line is...you get what ask for..you get what youmeasure!63. cleverclogs - January 19, 2011 at 08:47 amI'm a little confused about the criteria for "intensive reading and writing."

All reading and writing assignments are not equal. Reading 40 pages of Derridais going to be much harder than reading 40 pages of a Helen Fielding novel,unless the definition of reading is "letting one's eyes skim across typedwords." Similarly, a highly crafted 3-page paper is going to require more workand more thought than 10 pages of blather.

I don't know if the study accounts for these differences in their findings, butjust for the record, simply assigning more work is not the same as demanding"rigor" if that work is just a longer version of a poor process.64. tutzauer - January 19, 2011 at 12:53 pmIf the authors are so concerned with general academic skills like criticalthinking, reading, and writing (those measured by the CLA), they might look totheir own lack of scholarship and critical thinking in their overblown claims

and conclusions based on a very limited measure of "learning." If there is blame to be assigned, it must equally point to our society at-large, where parentsexpect their children to "get training for a job" not wallow in "grand ideas."Look also to the quality of discourse on pressing social issues like health care or global military responsibilities. Sound bites, but little thoughtfuldiscussion or analysis. And we wonder why college students don't have time toread and write. Why should they? Our political leaders don't model a verydesirable (or intellectual) behavior themselves. Nothing in the CLA gets athigher-level domain-specific skills that are the core of a student's majorfield. Isn't that why they go to college -- to immerse themselves in a highlyspecialized field of study? And the CLA doesn't measure domain-specificabilities in reading, writing, and critical thinking. I was a mathematics major, and reading 10 pages of dense formulas and mathematical proofs took a great deal of deliberative thought and effort. But I didn't read a great many pages perweek within my major field because it isn't a "verbose" discipline. The lack of"reading large numbers of pages" in college may speak more to the the fact thatfewer and fewer students are majoring in traditional disciplines that USED tomake up a liberal education.65. 2catmama - January 19, 2011 at 01:25 pmThey are now finally doing to higher education what they have been doing toPK-12 for the last 10 years.

If educators are going to survive this assault we must band together toemphasize the fact that students hold the most responsibility for their



progress.66. pdcerys - January 19, 2011 at 03:34 pmMany students have been very spoiled and expect to have a lot of free time topursue their interests outside of the classroom. I'm assisting with admissionsinterviews for an elite undergrad program and several of my interviewees havenervously asked about free time and how much time a typical student spendsstudying. The ones who have asked didn't like the response which makes me wonder

why you'd apply to a demanding program.67. fortysomethingprof - January 20, 2011 at 12:01 am"It might sound trite, Mr. Arum says, but those observations boil down to thelesson that colleges must find ways to build cultures of academic rigor."

A few suggestions:

(1) Replace anonymous student teaching evaluations with faculty peer evaluations of teaching.(2) Phase out grades and phase in rankings. Start by including class ranks on

transcripts for every course (e.g., History 215, The Civil War, B+, 10th of 15).(3) Require each student to minor in a humanities subject chosen from a veryshort list (Literature, History, or Philosophy).(4) Enact across-the-board 20% attrition after the sophomore year, based not ongrades, but on aggregate class rankings.

Having said all of that I think high school is the real problem. Students can'tlearn in college because they haven't learned how to learn earlier. By the timethey get to college it's too late.68. lucconcord - January 20, 2011 at 01:45 amExcellent assessments by so many! The drive for student retention is certainlykey; the elimination of core curriculum (a related issue) is also a criticalloss. The emphasis on "learning together in groups" has been one of the death

knells for the education process. "Reflection papers" substituted for realresearch papers have allowed the most vapid of ideas to pass for astuteanalysis. As a non-tenured professor for many years, teaching undergrad to Ph.D. level students, I have encountered plagiarism at all levels. And I, too, havebeen asked by the department to change grades to be "sensitive" to students.

Education has become a debacle. The emphasis on techniques and strategies inK-12 classes, as well as the promotion of group learning, have not only utterlyaltered the risk and the thrill of the acquisition of knowledge for the student, they have dissolved the notion of content in a fraudulent quest for "process."By the time students arrive at university, their skills have been derailed andthey have inverted notions about what it is to learn, think, or write.

I'm happy to see so many other ed professionals who can specifically identifythese problems, though. Perhaps we can all found a new institution withreason-based coursework that bans "consensus-driven" instruction...

69. jcisneros - January 20, 2011 at 07:45 amTeaching secondary school is a tough gig. This is my opinion only, take it asyou will.

Standardized testing creates a floor, not a ceiling. The tests that states arerequiring to pass high school are based on calculated minimums. As a result,

when secondary school teachers teach the test, they are teaching the minimumstandard to function in society. This rarely bodes well for students moving tothe next level.



Community colleges can be a place for a weaker student to learn the skills andrigor necessary to go on to a four year institution, if they are allowed to doso. There is no bottom line here. There will always be varying levels ofperformance at university and a four year degree for one person does notnecessarily equate to the four year degree another student earns. Some of it has

to do with attitude, some of it has to do with the level of challenge. An honors student who is always taking courses with more demanding professors, has a highlevel of self-discipline, and expects nothing but the best from themselves willalmost always outperform a student who parties, sleeps in class, and onlydemands the minimum from themselves to get the degree. Finally, a helicopterparent who demands that the precious darling absolutely cannot fail only hurtstheir child.

I detest student evaluations as a way of measuring the performance of aprofessor. The evaluations CAN yield some good ideas to improve as a teacher,but to expect candor and honesty on most of these evaluations is pure

foolishness. Most of them need to be pitched into the circular file.70. this_beats_research - January 20, 2011 at 02:11 pmAt the end of the day, there is a world of difference between teaching andlearning. Professors do the former, and students do the latter. In this day andage, it is a realtively rare professor which impedes the latter (there are some, but not as many as people think).

Students who want to learn will learn. Those who don't will blow a boatload ofsomeone's money on getting a degree. The two co-vary independently.

The big issue I see on campus is how students occupy their time: they areconstantly busy, but rarely doing work. They think they are working hard...It's

hard to assign work to them, because they are resentful about how much otherwork they have, arising from their empty busyness.71. jkkrueger37 - January 20, 2011 at 05:47 pmMy concern is the use of the CLA for the findings stated by Arum and Roksa. Ifone would look at the methodology used for the CLA, most seniors complete theassessment in March and April. They do not take it as seriously as they should,since it is the last semester for them. Senioritis is a factor that plays intothe results. Most don't see the importance or the relevance of completing theassessment--they JUST WANT TO GRADUATE. In addition, the seniors who take theinstrument may not have taken it in their first-year, so it is not a truelongitudinal study, so I would question the reliability of the data for each ofthe students.

I also find it ironic that no schools were listed in the sample; just by listing that it was representative of institutions, does not clearly show accuracy.Ironically, the institution I work at participated in the study, and we did noteven received the data sets, so if these two sociologists received data then Iwould question the ethics behind the CAE and CLA.

We do live in a world of "best practices", so most institutions would like tounderstand what is being incorporated in curriculum for the success of students.

I do not deny that we should be having conversations discussing rigor and if the

set learning outcomes are being achieved by students, but we need to be cautious of the latest craze being published by these two sociologist, who aren't



accurately portraying the situation.

Lastly, we do need to look at the culture of those coming to college. Moststudents think "it's the thing to do," even though other educational systems inother countries know that NOT everyone is prepared, nor capable of college work. We still need skilled labor and that continued education in technical colleges

is just as noble.72. momof4boys - January 20, 2011 at 06:11 pmAs a parent of four sons who are all diversified in their education andemployment I have to say that I disagree with the findings, or rather thesumming up of the findings of this book. While there may be some students who in fact do not work up to their potential, I feel that the majority do. I currently have two sons in college and one daughter in law and two of the three arestraight A's, the other is a first year student and has a B average. Collegestudents today are a broad range of ages and I truly feel that this study wasnot completed in a way that encompasses the overall projection of today's

college student. Every day you read of new inventions, developments, and many,many outstanding events taking place in our nation. To say that our colleges are not doing thier job is unfair and unfounded. Maybe we should see where theauthor is in 10 years compared to the average college student in ten years andsee who put forth the effort.........73. lightgrav - January 20, 2011 at 06:52 pmI got my bachelor's degree 3 decades ago after 164 credits.Not unusual for a bachelor's degree 1 decade ago to require 130.Some states now demand that bachelor's degrees fit in 120-121.=> legislatures must think courses are much more effective now.

High-school classes are routinely given college "transfer" credit

(one student got 32 transfer credits from "life experience").Colleges compute gpa's ignoring low grades, for retaken classes,so "C" students can think of themselves as "B+/A-" students.(They would have been "D/F" students, before grade inflation.)=> colleges are deceiving their students."But I'll lose my scholarship if you give me a B!"74. lightgrav - January 20, 2011 at 07:20 pmLab reports, at 1Â½ pages per week, are "writing-intensive"! (LOL)but my calc-based Physics is scheduled to read 32 pages/week of text... plus 2 pages/week of "summary" at the end of each chapter... plus (some of) the 6 pages filled with homework problems=> about 40 pages/week, so it is also "reading-intensive" .oh, so THAT is why it improves their critical-thinking skills! ;->75. normjones - January 21, 2011 at 08:43 amBefore we assume their findings are correct, take a look at the research. TheLumina Foundation funded a longterm study of the CLA. Its findings can be readat:

http://www.collegiatelearningassessment.org/files/CLA_Lumina_Longitudinal_Study_ Summary_Findings.pdf76. udippel - January 21, 2011 at 11:00 amchroniclebarnacle,

you've got it spot on! As a university teacher, mostly on the undergrad level,the result offered by the authors is no surprise at all to me. And my colleagues

are surprised neither. Some of them may have excuses, but I would be hardpressed to find a single one who doesn't think likewise. Though we may not voice



it out, because it has become one of the deadly sins in the period of 'everyonecan' in (higher) education to question the aptitude of everyone to excel. [Onecould ask here, how one can excel when everyone can excel, btw.]What we have seen is a societal phenomenon - or should I say phantom? - thatnobody actually dares questioning the current target of getting 80% of thepopulation onto degree level. It is reserved to the delusional ones to actually

believe this could be achieved without significantly dumbing down the curricula.

A mean is a mean is a mean, and almost all living beings cannot escape thenormal distribution (or the log normal). Which means that a graduation rate of80% of the population with some degree will necessitate the lowering of thegraduation bar on a large scale.

Actually, I pity the youngsters with an 'average' degree: They have accumulateddebts, to be paid back over years if not decades, and nothing that renders thememployable, except of a cert or a scroll that pretends to.

77. orwellsdisciple - January 21, 2011 at 11:40 amI looked through the comments hoping someone had posted a certain lecture byGeorge Carlin. Explains it all!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acLW1vFO-2Q&feature=related78. gahnett - January 23, 2011 at 01:13 pmdrspektor (47)wrote:

interface (#9) wrote: "Where's the problem? I'd say in a 64% success rate.Should a doctor with a 64% success rate stay in business? Or a hairdresser, forthat matter?"

Well, just to be snarky, I must say that a physician (I reserve the title doctor

for those who hold the PhD) actually has a success rate of 0%. All the patientseventually expire.

______

Well, just to be snarky, I must say that a patient is no longer a patient whenhe leaves the care of the physician, so the success rate is not 0%. Besides, a64% success rate is of the population. Individuals are either 100% or 0%.

A 64% success rate is a D, isn't it?79. tcli5026 - January 24, 2011 at 04:10 pm"Where's the problem? I'd say in a 64% success rate. Should a doctor with a 64%success rate stay in business? Or a hairdresser, for that matter?"

How about a baseball player? Batting .640 would make that player an automaticcandidate for the HOF. Of course, I jest. The point is, you cannot arbitrarilypick out a few professions and use those as the only standard by which to judge"success" or "failure." You need to pick out ones in which a comparison withhigher education makes sense.

80. dsmebane - January 25, 2011 at 10:47 amSo I heard a story (second-hand) from a fellow alum of Georgia Tech, whoattended back in the days when college was much more rigorous and both

university students and faculty were all much more virtuous. He said that aprofessor of freshman biology addressed the crowded lecture hall on the firstday, and informed the students that half of them wouldn't make it to graduation.



Now those were the days!

Nowadays, so the study says, two-thirds of the students really learn somethingin college, and even Georgia Tech doesn't flunk so many students out as it usedto. Some say this means that higher education is on the rocks. But if thatlong-ago biology professor's prediction was anywhere close to accurate, then

some might call it progress, even enlightenment.

In nearly every setting, in almost every culture, a certain number of an oldergeneration feels like everything is falling apart, because things aren't likethey were back when they were younger. This is an understandable human emotion.Students nowadays are just too coddled, and faculty are too permissive -- nonewill never be so wonderfully fantastic as their forbears. But anotherperspective I've often heard is that students and faculty alike have never beenso accomplished as now.81. comments - January 25, 2011 at 03:07 pmI know people are offering all sorts of reasons for the failure of colleges toteach, but the fundamental reasons, it seems to me, are that:

1) people teaching in college have not studied teaching;2) teaching is not properly evaulated or rewarded;3) teachers are not allowed to mix other requirements with teaching (e.g., youshould be rewarded for research that is cobmined with, not separate from, yourteaching, etc.);4) did I mention, people teaching in college have not studied teaching;5) and, finally, people teaching in college have not studied teaching.

In short, there should be a requirement that teachers have taken a couple ofcourses in college and/or adult education, were mentored for a few classes by an recognized teacher of quality, and are taken workshops or courses every few

years in the field (much as high school teachers are required).

82. bcamarda - January 26, 2011 at 09:56 amEveryone seems to agree that "It would be a huge mistake... for the governmentto impose a new learning-accountability regime from outside."

Remind me why.

The institutions are clearly discinclined to do so on their own, and as thecommenters have made clear, a perfect-storm conspiracy of outside forces (fromstudents to markets) wishes them not to do so.

Kindly tell me how improvements will happen widely without the outsideintervention of a force with the power and cash to mandate them. Kindly tell mewho, other than the government, has that power and cash.

And as we wait for higher education to fix this on its own, kindly tell me howmany millions of students will flood out of colleges and universities withoutthe meaningful critical thinking skills they need.83. hawkeyedj - January 26, 2011 at 11:16 amFor any post-graduate career worth a damn, there is a state-sanctionedindependent exam that must be passed before one is allowed to participate in the career. Examples include medicine and all allied health care fields, attorneys,CPAs, engineers, and actuaries. Even cosmotologists and barbers must pass

licensing exams before they are turned loose on the public.

If other degree programs were held to similar standards, where students had to



demonstrate a minimum competency before the school could award the degree, itwould give the institution the incentive to raise the academic performance bar.As it is, many degrees are virtually worthless, as they are handed out as somuch evidence of 'attendance' and nothing more. Today, if a student pays theirtuition, the school has little or no incentive to upset the student by requiring they stress their mind.

84. jlgraham - January 28, 2011 at 04:30 pmWith respect to collaborative education, I have doubts about the way I have seen it recently conducted. I am speaking as a layman with a keen interest ineducation, and strictly from personal experience, not statistical reseach. Ihave worked for a number of years in small, collaborative teams in smallbusinesses and one very large corporation. I am left with the impression thatthe seemingly vague model of collaborative assignments does not faithfullyreflect circumstances in the workplace.

If a manager is competent, he or she assembles teams based on member'sdemonstrated skills. This may not always be the best stategy for the classroom,

but it is a difference. A manager may not observe the progress of every smallassignment, but at certian points the skill and productivity of individual teammembers and the harmony of the team "chemistry" is evaluated. There may beefforts to analyze and assist team performance.

Educational team assignments often appear to be semi-random, with little or notracking of individual contributions. High performing students may be burdenedor penalized while unhelpful behavior patterns of poor, unmotivated students are reinforced.

The abilty work collaboratively is extemely important. So important that itshould be analyzed and taught explicitly, with a focus on development of

colaborative skills as well as mastering the topic of a course. I see littlereason to assume that effective teams with necessarilly emerge spontaneouslyfrom a group assignment. The methods and mission of education differs from thatof other circumstances, and the conduct of educational team assignments willreflect this, but pedagogy should at least call attention to these differencesand as much as possible, prepare the student for cooperative work beyond theschool.85. mlalvarez227 - February 09, 2011 at 11:32 amthis was my favorite part: "Among those who were working full-time, only 17percent were earning more than $40,000 a year."As an educator, student success professional, supervisor, advisor, programmanager...I have yet to break the 40K salary line at either of the 2universities I have worked for, and I have a masters degree. I have come to theconclusion that the only way to get out of low-paying, over-working middlemanagement positions is to get my EdD and become one of the snarkyadministrators telling professors to be nice.I am kidding. I will say that as a former first year advisor and FYE instructorat a private HSI, we accepted a wide spectrum of underprepared students and just didn't have the resources to make up for thier lack of reading writing and mathskiills. I worked with faculty who taught very challenging courses not so theycould change their courses at all, but to learn what I could do with my students strategy and study wise to aid in their success. I believe that with true focus,

we can bridge the gap. But as so many have stated...student success doesn't mean the same thing to everyone. retention=/=student success. great evals=/=student



success. enrolling your target number regardless of their preperation=/=studentsuccess.learning, growth and change in a student=student AND institutional success.86. walsh05 - February 10, 2011 at 09:18 amWhat's strange is that we have data already about which majors perform well onverbal skills and analytical writing. It is no surprise that PHILOSOPHY tops the

list, along with History and English majors. Is it really so difficult tobelieve that students who take Logic courses and rigorous writing courses intheir philosophy programs have superior analytical and writing abilities? Isuspect that one reason for such poor performance across the country is thatmany colleges undervalue philosophy and do not require students to take it. Thesolution: require every college graduate to take a logic class at a minimum. Assupport for this, I offer this suggestive (though not conclusive) data forrecent GRE scores by major:

Major, Verbal, Quant, Analytical Writing

Philosophy 589 636 5.1

English 559 552 4.9History 543 556 4.8Art History 538 554 4.7Religion 538 583 4.8Physics 534 738 4.5Anthropology 532 571 4.7For. Language 529 573 4.6Pol Science 522 589 4.8Economics 504 706 4.5Math 502 733 4.4Earth Science 495 637 4.4Engin., Mat'ls 494 729 4.3Biology 491 632 4.4

Art/Perf. 489 571 4.3Chemistry 487 682 4.4Sociology 487 545 4.6Ed. Secondary 486 577 4.5Engin. Chem 485 727 4.3Architecture 477 614 4.3Finance 476 709 4.3Communications 470 533 4.5Psychology 470 543 4.5Comp. Science 469 704 4.2Engin.Mech. 467 723 4.2Ed. Higher 465 548 4.6Agriculture 461 596 4.2Engin. Elec 461 728 4.1Engin. Civil 457 702 4.2Public Admin. 452 513 4.3Ed.Elementary 443 527 4.3Engin. Indust. 440 710 4.1Business Admin. 439 562 4.2Social Work 428 468 4.1Accounting 415 595 3.9

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2010/12/verbal-vs-mathematical-aptitude-in-academics/87. dboyles - February 12, 2011 at 07:45 pm

@walsh05-- Thanks for the reference to the GRE score/discipline comparisons.Philosophy rules! Next step: comparing disciplines with average mean salary forthe disciplines (Bureau of Labor Statistics data, Oklahoma State Salary Survey



data for academics, or other data base). Although complex factors includingsupply and demand will confound comparisons, a very rough comparison of thevalidation/lack of validation of our respective disciplines by employers if notby society might be interpolated. Those of us in academe who are salariedaccording to discipline against market surveys (such as the Oklahoma study) arewell aware of the bias toward disciplines, a market bias perpetuating a biaswithin academe under the premise that people don't want to go into academe, but

they will if you offer them a salary competitive with extra-academic employers.Clearly the English teacher doesn't contribute as much to the engineeringprofessor, judging by relative salaries. No doubt philosophy and the sharpestminds will not be at the top of the salary list (chemical engineers may). Somuch for our validation of the brightest and best--engineers are technicallytrained but don't approach philosophy students. And the link between Asperger'sand engineers has been well-publicized.

If we aren't validating at the level of the marketplace what the brightest andbest have learned in the university, neither are we validating learning withinthe university according to 'Academically Adrift'. "But now that we've seen thedata, we're very concerned about American higher education and the extent to

which undergraduate learning seems to have been neglected." Seems to have been?Are we yet that uncertain?Add Your CommentCommenting is closed.B Movie

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