This isn't good news-but I'm not surprised

[justamouse]

http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/brain-drain-most-college-students-learn-next-to-nothing-new-study-says-yftt_535824.html

 

Brain Drain: Most College Students Learn Next to Nothing, New Study Says

 

 

The report based on the book Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses found that after two years of college, 45% of students learned little to nothing. After four years, 36% of students learned almost nothing.

 

Lack of Learning

 

Most people would jump to the conclusion that it is the fault of the college student who just wants to have fun and party, but that’s not entirely the full picture. Even though students are about 50% less likely to study today than in previous decades, the report found universities are to blame as well; largely because professors spend too much time focused on research and not enough time on the students.

 

It's like we're between a rock and a hard place. They need the degree to get many entry level jobs, but they don't learn anything so the money is just a giant flush?

 

Is this because HSs are doing such a poor job that a college degree is now the new HS diploma thus employers need it as a baseline?

 

Is this a case of too many kids in school who really don't belong there?

 

It's not surprising after hearing in another thread that many college kids don't know what a noun is or that there are 50 (US) states.

 

:confused:

Edited January 19, 2011 by justamouse

[Rhonda in TX]

Wow. I can't imagine this. I was exposed to and learned so much in college. Have things changed that much?

[Janice H]

I heard about it in the car on the news (with no citation of course). I hope it's not going to be true of dd, the science major.

[asta]

Wow. I can't imagine this. I was exposed to and learned so much in college. Have things changed that much?

 

Yes, IMO.

 

Although I'm sure we'll hear differently from lots of engineers.

 

 

a

[Nan in Mass]

If it is any comfort, my older two (state college) have learned lots, especially the engineer (as predicted by Asta), and my youngest, who has had two classes so far at CC, learned what I had hoped he would. So far, so good. : )

[memphispeg]

I am not surprised here. I think the sciences are still ok. The science majors that we know are working v. hard and learning all the new technology, etc. My dd is a philosophy major and is working v. hard and says that she has learned to read and write!!!! We all need to remind ourselves that in college, like everything else, you get what you put into things. I told my dc, look around, find something so interesting that even when you are up at 2 in the morning working on it you'll sit back and say "this is sooooo cool!!!" That's the goal for college and beyond.

[Jane in NC]

The premise of the report is based on a standardized exam given to students entering college and then repeated at the end of their sophomore year.

 

What is on this standardized exam that can create a uniform measure for students in the arts as well as the sciences? I am a bit skeptical about this latest report (which was mentioned in a different thread on the General Board.)

 

As one who does not believe that my son's achievements are measured via standardization, I would like to see more on the test that was given which led to the grandiose pronouncements. This from a parent whose son has done very well on standardized exams and is doing well in college. One reason that I chose to homeschool was to focus on education--not the )#*$_@!! test which is the basis of my public school's pedagogy.

 

Sorry folks. Simplistic headlines are irritating me these days.

 

Jane

[regentrude]

I read this yesterday, and I definitely do not agree, for several reasons.

 

1. Not all colleges are created equal. There may be situations when college gives a mediocre education - and there are stellar ones.

 

2. The amount of writing assignments is not a good measure for the amount of learning! I have a PhD in physics; in the eight years of my university education I had to write: one research report, one master thesis, one doctoral thesis. Judging by the number of "20 page papers" I should have learned nothing - but I did. Only not stuff that can be measured by the number of pages filled with words.

 

3. I am a college instructor myself, and believe me, my students learn. I teach physics at an engineering school.

My students learn LOT during a single semester. That is, 80% of them do. (For the rest, non-attendance and not doing assignments are factors in their non-learning.)

This is not just an observation about my own students. All my colleagues notice how far the students come in just one semester because it is so different teaching them during the second semester ;-)

 

4. Lastly, college means taking charge of one's own education. That means: I can learn something even if it is not assigned. I can choose to do more than the minimum requirement. I can choose to use the things I learned as a jumping point to learn more. College should not be about spoon feeding students material and handing them a degree.

Unfortunately, many students will expect exactly that. We joke that education seems to be the only product where many customers are trying to get as little for their money as possible.

I believe that the situation in public schools is largely contributing to this attitude. But as long as a student is not willing to learn and exert himself, he will not benefit from a college education. And a student who is willing and interested WILL learn - with our without college. As all you homeschoolers know ;-)

 

So, a blanket statement that "students don't learn anything in college" is nonsense.

[Jane in NC]

I read this yesterday, and I definitely do not agree, for several reasons.

 

1. Not all colleges are created equal. There may be situations when college gives a mediocre education - and there are stellar ones.

 

2. The amount of writing assignments is not a good measure for the amount of learning! I have a PhD in physics; in the eight years of my university education I had to write: one research report, one master thesis, one doctoral thesis. Judging by the number of "20 page papers" I should have learned nothing - but I did. Only not stuff that can be measured by the number of pages filled with words.

 

3. I am a college instructor myself, and believe me, my students learn. I teach physics at an engineering school.

My students learn LOT during a single semester. That is, 80% of them do. (For the rest, non-attendance and not doing assignments are factors in their non-learning.)

This is not just an observation about my own students. All my colleagues notice how far the students come in just one semester because it is so different teaching them during the second semester ;-)

 

4. Lastly, college means taking charge of one's own education. That means: I can learn something even if it is not assigned. I can choose to do more than the minimum requirement. I can choose to use the things I learned as a jumping point to learn more. College should not be about spoon feeding students material and handing them a degree.

Unfortunately, many students will expect exactly that. We joke that education seems to be the only product where many customers are trying to get as little for their money as possible.

I believe that the situation in public schools is largely contributing to this attitude. But as long as a student is not willing to learn and exert himself, he will not benefit from a college education. And a student who is willing and interested WILL learn - with our without college. As all you homeschoolers know ;-)

 

So, a blanket statement that "students don't learn anything in college" is nonsense.

 

Hear, hear! Twenty pages of dense mathematics cannot be compared with twenty pages of fluff.

 

And I keep coming back to the test that was given. How was this nebulous thing called "critical thinking" measured? And can the measurement be the same for a physics major as well as political science or music?

[Nan in Mass]

Perhaps the critical thinking bit of the test was like the puzzles used to test intelligence? If so, one would assume that the students would score about the same after two years. At least, the people who design the intelligence tests tried to design it so that learning didn't affect the test results.

 

And I agree about the papers. My oldest just got two humanities credits for a trip to Ireland. When he got home, he had to do a paper. The paper was no measure of what he got out of the trip. I think the only way to measure what he learned (I'm using the term "measure" very very loosely) would be to hear him enthusiastically spill bits of it to his parents when he first came home, and to talk to him later in life and see what he remembers and whether he still thinks it was valuable. How can you quantify his new understanding of how old old is, of why his ancesters might have left Ireland, of why a friend fought for the IRA and then chose to stop fighting for them? If you read his paper, which was about music, you would get no sense of that whatsoever. And that is just his humanities, not even the engineering that he is there to study. And this is a small state college, not a flagship university or a lac.

 

I, too, am pretty impatient with all these headlines. The contratict each other dreadfully. We read that US high schools are horrible, then we read that high schoolers must have more and more AP classes and perfect SAT scores and prizes for their latest useful invention and gap years saving the world and published papers in their intended field of study to get into college, and then we read that nobody can afford to go to college anymore, and then we read that once there, they aren't learning anything. So according to the media, everyone is getting a dreadful education, nobody can get into college, nobody can afford college, but more people than ever are going. Hmmmm...

 

-Nan

Edited January 19, 2011 by Nan in Mass

[FaithManor]

Regentrude nailed it! I also think that colleges are very hampered in their admission's process by the fact that they rely so much on "grades" and standardized tests. The public schools spend a tremendous amount of time testing kids. They become good "testers" but that doesn't mean they will be good scholars and basing admissions on what is now basically "inflated grades" and a good ACT or SAT score means that many incoming freshman may not achieve well in college if that grade inflation and "the only test I have to take is a multiple choice test" trend does not continue.

 

Yes, the kids with the big scholarships tend to be the ones with many other achievements that point to a student who will thrive and learn...yet, the halls of American colleges are not filled with these students. Only a very small percentage comprise this lot. I can't tell you the number of kids I know that are just astounded when they get to college and encounter a test that is not multiple choice or that they must actually do real, meaningful work in order to pass the class. This is especially true in our area where colleges should consider high school transcripts to be nothing more than bad jokes. Seriously, the local geometry teacher gives full credit (40% of the grade) for homework being turned in...it is ungraded!!! If the student turns it in, they are given all the points. They also get points for not sleeping class. What does an "A" mean in that class? The freshman biology class teacher gives such easy exams that it would make your head spin. One of the algebra 2 teachers (a man that gets criticized for actually making students work in his class) asked the biology instructor for a copy of the semester final. He took it home and handed it to his 4th grader. She got an A!!!!! He could not believe how easy it was. Not only that, but the day it was administered in school, the biology instructor left all of his bulletin board materials and charts up....75% of the answers were on the walls!!! This kind of "high school" education does not make for a good college scholar.

 

As for the "standardized test" given to the college students, that makes me want to snort. I was a piano performance major so I'd just love to give the whole campus a music theory exam and then declare "75% of the student body isn't learning anything"....yep, their lack of knowledge of German Augmented Sixth chords and Twelve Tone Rows is certainly indicitive of a serious lack of learning problem! (insert HUGE eye roll here)

 

It's high time this nation rejected the myth that standardized tests are indicitive of actual learning.

 

Faith

[Jane in NC]

As for the "standardized test" given to the college students, that makes me want to snort. I was a piano performance major so I'd just love to give the whole campus a music theory exam and then declare "75% of the student body isn't learning anything"....yep, their lack of knowledge of German Augmented Sixth chords and Twelve Tone Rows is certainly indicitive of a serious lack of learning problem! (insert HUGE eye roll here)

 

It's high time this nation rejected the myth that standardized tests are indicitive of actual learning.

 

Faith

 

Two sociologists authored the study and the resulting book. How much of their own biases did they bring to this?

[Tullia]

He has learned quite a bit in the past four terms, and I think that's true of most of his courses; math, science, programming and humanities. The weakest of his courses was an economics requirement; it wasn't bad just geared to people who hadn't read economics previously and ds had done so.

 

However, his experience may not be typical. I've learned from reading these boards and doing some investigation of the faculty stats at our CC that New Mexico's unique demographics mean that CC students here have access to well-qualified instructors who for a variety of reasons are working outside the typical scholarly tenure track. Also, degree programs are fairly new at CNM, so there's a lot of enthusiasm. Without intending to do so, we stumbled into a situation very like a small LAC in some respects--small class sizes taught by well-qualified faculty with excellent teaching skills. You'd never guess that based on external appearances or casual visits to the campus, though.

 

I do think there is room for criticism; too many colleges and universities are resting on their laurels and living in the past. Some of the most prestigious institutions seem to be among the worst. (There are exceptions.) Dh and I had some adjusting to do when we started counseling ds on college choices; our degrees date from the late '70's and early 80's--there have been superficial changes, but in many respects the worst features of academia have not changed. I predict post secondary education will see more change in the next few years. A friend who is passionate about scholarly endeavors remarked once that many of the intellectual advances of the Renaissance happened in spite of, not because of, the prevailing norms in the universities. Today,there are many frustrated scholars who feel constrained by the system but find an outlet on the Internet.

 

So, if one assumes that we truly are on the cusp of a great change with regard to post-secondary education--that is good in one way, but makes giving a student sound advice very difficult. I've told ds to look at college primarily as a credentials process and to focus on learning skills which a potential employer needs. If he gets help along the way with furthering his education, that's a good thing, but the primary responsibility for making that happen will be on him not the institution. There; I've said it...it's about money...now I'll go wash my mouth out with soap:tongue_smilie:.

 

I have profound disagreements with the authors' methodology. But then, sociologists do place a lot of faith (misplaced IMNSHO) in standardized testing.

Edited January 19, 2011 by Martha in NM
clarity

[TravelingChris]

My d isn't even in college yet but she has learned a lot from her two dual enrollment classes that she did in high school- Honors psychology and criminology. Even in the one hour class in literature that she sat in on during a college visit, she learned something. Unless all the material was a repeat of high school work that had been done (or work even earlier), I don't see how anybody who tries to learn, doesn't learn something. My son started fall semester fine and was learning but never finished the semester due to illness. He still learned even though he hadn't gone to all classes. He didn't learn as much as he would have if he had attended all classes but it is hard not to learn. As many previous posters commented, what standardized test would show you what anyone learned in college since they are all taking different courses at different schools.

[Tullia]

It's high time this nation rejected the myth that standardized tests are indicitive of actual learning.

 

Faith

 

Well said! It is time to reject that myth and several other educational myths we've accepted over the years. I've come to the conclusion that because social scientists have found that it is, indeed, possible to predict human behavior with uncanny accuracy, both individually and collectively, it necessarily follows that a standardized, statistically modeled approach to education is desirable. I think we're seeing evidence that such an educational philosophy cannot be sustained long-term, and I would say, even if it were possible, it would not be desirable. Sociologists as a group have their own set of myths, parents cherish their own myths, and the educrats have yet another. Maybe we need to forge a new national myth more grounded in reality.

Edited January 19, 2011 by Martha in NM
Not enough coffee this morning..

[Nan in Mass]

...As for the "standardized test" given to the college students, that makes me want to snort. I was a piano performance major so I'd just love to give the whole campus a music theory exam and then declare "75% of the student body isn't learning anything"....yep, their lack of knowledge of German Augmented Sixth chords and Twelve Tone Rows is certainly indicitive of a serious lack of learning problem! (insert HUGE eye roll here)...

 

The more I think about this, the more I am irked by the thought that people think that one can make one test that will test what different majors are learning. I can't think of a single academic thing I learned in college that all the other majors at my university learned. Even academic skills. Some people learned to write better, I'm sure, but others focused on other sorts of communication, like learning to write in a foreign language or learning to draw or learning to sing or learning to get a computer or a horse or a child or an athlete to do what you had in mind.

 

I also think that students, when asked on a survey if they had learned a lot, would answer no. My initial reaction at the end of a homeschooling year, when sitting down to do the year-end assessments, is always to say that nobody learned anything. I have to work a bit to figure out what they did learn. And if I compare their end-of-the-year work with their work from last year, I seldom see any improvement. I have to look in longer chunks.

 

-Nan

[FaithManor]

Also Nan, I have found that this generation of kids has just jumped ridiculous hoops for sooooo long in the public education system that they "don't care" how they respond on surveys, polls, etc. Sometimes it's nothing more than a big joke or even worse, a major annoyance. Many participants aren't all that serious when they respond to either an oral or a written survey. This is especially true if the student is angry at the money he/she is spending on what he/she considers nonsense gen-ed classes.

 

One's reponse two years into working in their field will also be very, very different from one's response after spending three days prepping for a final exam in a class one didn't want to take to begin with, but met some requirement for graduation not related to one's field. If I had been asked, are you learning anything important after exiting my final exam in psyche 101 when I would much rather have spent three hours in the practice room prepping for my music jury later that day, you can bet I would have said, "NO! This class is stupid!" It's the nature of human beings and is not an accurate reflection of the education of that person.

 

Between 17-21, most young adults are convinced they are smarter than the grown-ups around them and KNOW everything. I really don't think that we should be hinging the future of college education on their opinions! LOL my parents and my professors turned out to be profoundly intelligent people that taught me soooooo much more than I gave them credit for at the time! I just needed to get my first real job and have a kid or two to realize it.

 

Faith

[Miss Marple]

I also think that students, when asked on a survey if they had learned a lot, would answer no. My initial reaction at the end of a homeschooling year, when sitting down to do the year-end assessments, is always to say that nobody learned anything. I have to work a bit to figure out what they did learn. And if I compare their end-of-the-year work with their work from last year, I seldom see any improvement. I have to look in longer chunks.

 

I agree (and find the bolded part especially applicable to our homeschool as well). The article referenced certainly does not mirror anything my oldest has experienced. I have been amazed at the quantity of work - real work - that boy has had to put out. From the 20 page research papers he had for Freshman Comp to the 5 calculus problems that spanned 20 pages I can see that he is, indeed, learning a LOT. On the other hand, some of the points could apply to ds#2's experience at our community college. I do feel that the professors have lowered the bar quite a bit in order to make the average student successful. But he did learn a lot in his history class because the professor was such a good speaker - he was engrossed in her lectures. He didn't have to put out a huge effort in writing, but he still learned.

 

I completely agree that an entering and leaving test given over the spectrum of students will not give an honest assessment. There are far too many variables - a single test cannot achieve a true assessment.

[justamouse]

.

I believe that the situation in public schools is largely contributing to this attitude. But as long as a student is not willing to learn and exert himself, he will not benefit from a college education. And a student who is willing and interested WILL learn - with our without college. As all you homeschoolers know ;-)

 

So, a blanket statement that "students don't learn anything in college" is nonsense.

 

I think this is true with everything-in any aspect of life. And I don't disagree with what you're saying.

 

My own experience with the local, highly rated CC would prove the article, though.

 

Does anyone have any experience from the arts side?

[FaithManor]

I can only speak as a former piano performance/music education student and teaching assistant - who actually taught the Fine Arts class for non-arts majors because the two professors involved hated being assigned that class and just thought it was easier to make me do the work for piddly pay!

 

It is virtually impossible to spend time in the arts department and not learn. This is especially true in music. They'll beat it into you if they have to by sheer torture or they'll drum you out on your head. Music is a brutal major no matter where you go. You have to begin taking classes in your major as a freshman or you won't make it - music theory 101 comes to mind in conjunction with aural harmony - and you have to take lessons on your instrument of choice or voice from the beginning as you must have 16 credits - two credits per semester for eight semesters - so O BOY ARE YOU GONNA LEARN SOMETHING! If you don't learn, they throw you out. Music is a provisional department. You are evaluated by the full faculty at the end of each year - called a jury - and if you don't get at least a B, you can't major in it anymore. You also have to audition and test to get in....if you don't already possess the minimum skills - and it's a lot of skill let me tell you! - you can't declare the major. I vomitted before my freshman jury because the pressure was so intense. Then there are the yearly recitals - evaluated by the entire department and you have to have a 90% or better in order to continue - etc. OH YEAH THERE IS LEARNING GOING ON!

 

Dh was a math major and had a similar experience at his uni - they would bump you out of the math major if your grades in any classes in your major fell below a B. You could minor in math on a C or D but you couldn't major in it. Well, with the possible exception was the education majors. This just really cheesed him off! A secondary Ed major could get D's in math and still graduate. Gee thanks....send our 60% averages into classrooms of 30 kids with multiple deficits and not even be PROFICIENT at the subject material - lovely standards.

 

The art majors at my uni were a unique bunch of truly uptight people -bordering on nervous disorders. They were as bad as the music majors and of course the judging of their skills was even more subjective than that of the music majors. At least in music, someone might not agree with your "interpretation" of a given piece but you could still earn an A because you didn't make mistakes, counted correctly, followed the articulation marks, techincally flawlessly, wide dynamic range, etc. Good Gravy! I saw unbelievably talented artwork given failing grades because the professor just simply didn't like it and said professor was not required to substantiate the grade! Preparing for those gallery shows was INTENSE! That said, I did have a chance to sit in on a couple of photography and basic sketching classes. I don't know how anyone with even half a brain and fully conscious could leave that semester and not have learned a h*ll of a lot even if they didn't pass the class.

 

So, I just think that this "study" by this set of sociologists is TOTAL BUNK!

 

Faith

[Tullia]

I'm wondering if the concept of being "adrift" as reflected in their book's title might have been influenced by what's happened to the discipline of sociology in the past couple of decades. I remember seeing numbers showing large declines in numbers of students entering the field. My impression is that the discipline has fragmented partly because of political correctness, but IMO it's also plagued by a stubborn insistence that the logic which underlies constructing and analyzing surveys is sound. [i have some foundational theoretical qualms about sociology as well, but they don't apply to this question.]

 

When I was younger and had a more agile mind, the logic of survey analysis was fascinating to me. Of course, a decent analysis of results presupposes that someone has first constructed a meaningful survey instrument which has also yielded valid results for analysis. That's easier said than done; there are soooo many places for things to go wrong. What perplexes me is that anyone finds such studies worthwhile. I'm still scratching my head about that person in Brooklyn who convinced someone that putting 50+ first grade students in one room was a good idea.

 

The more I look into the sources behind the article, the less I think this even matters for anything other than to promote discussion. The premises are questionable, and the conclusions are suspect at best. Slow news day + parents understandably anxious about costs = headline.

 

ETA: The fact that there are aimless students wasting their time in college doesn't mean that learning isn't taking place. Party schools and disengaged students are not new.

Edited January 19, 2011 by Martha in NM

[Nan in Mass]

Well, two of mine have taken CC drawing 1 and one, state college photography 1. The drawers went into the drawing class being able to draw and came out drawing better. I don't see how anyone could sit down and draw for a few hours every week without getting better at it unless they were very good indeed to start with, and in that case, I should think they would be able to find some other aspect to practise as they waited out their drawing 1 requirement. The oldest had had photography in public high school and definately learned something about design principles in the class. I don't know how much art the oldest learned in his college photography, but he learned quite a lot about how to manipulate digital photographs on the computer. I think any class where one is required to actually do the thing one is learning for hours on end encourages one to get better at that thing, even if one has to do one's own critiquing. The student is probably going to do quite a bit of exploring on his own, out of sheer boredom if nothing else. It isn't the sort of thing where you can think oh, I know this already and then sleep through the lecture. I don't really have much experience in it, though.

-Nan

[abbeyej]

Wow. I can't imagine this. I was exposed to and learned so much in college. Have things changed that much?

 

I think it really *is* up to the student. And it's not a matter of "partying" or not so much as being genuinely proactive with regard to their own education. Students *can* get by with minimal study time, minimal work, minimal interaction with professors... But they can also choose to make the most of their time. One of my goals pre-college is to teach my kids how to take advantage of learning opportunities and do my best to instill in them the habits that will keep that a priority. 'Cause yeah, it's really easy to go through school without learning much. But the opportunities *are* there.

[justamouse]

So after watching Declining By Degrees on Netflix streaming and now reading COLLEGES THAT CHANGE LIVES by Lauren Pope--all three references (Movie, book, article) say almost the exact same thing.

 

I don't know who kept referencing CTCL, but I finally caved and bought it and I have to say, thank you. You were right. Amazing, amazing book.

[Capt_Uhura]

I had posted this at the Logic stage board b/c I missed it over here as I haven't had time to lurk here. :001_smile: My first thought was "Let me see the test!" My second thought was that with the big push for "college for everyone" college will get diluted down. The same thing happened in our high school. IT got so large, that it was impossible to manage. The kids who wanted to learn sat in the front and learned something. The kids who wanted to just skate by, sat in the back and played cards, did just enough to squeak by.

 

There are so many contradictory messages out there. On NPR the other day, an international firm stated that it had 3000 (or was it 300) positions available in the US but couldn't fill them b/c they needed competent scientists and engineers. yet you read about so many engineers being out of work. But my FIL who has a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the UK, who has just retired at 66, says that the younger engineers don't understand the algorithms. THey know enough to put numbers into the computer and get an answer but the depth of understanding is just not there when problems arise. FIL has retired three times. Each time, the company BEGS BEGS BEGs him to come back. He goes back. WOrks part time, before you know it, he's traveling across the country and working more hours. But the time finally came where he felt that his memory wasn't what it was and he, I think, got nervous about that possibly costing lives if he were to make a mistake. But he does comment on the poor math skills and lack of understanding of new engineers today.

[Negin]

I haven't read the entire article yet, but I am planning to soon.

I also really want to see this documentary.

 

[Ellie]

This is one reason that I had my dds do community college instead of high school: the lower division classes at college are a repeat of high school. Why do them twice if it isn't necessary?

 

And yes, public high schools do a really bad job of teaching. This has been true at least since before my dc were school age, and that's 30 years.

[Laura Corin]

Regentrude nailed it! I also think that colleges are very hampered in their admission's process by the fact that they rely so much on "grades" and standardized tests. The public schools spend a tremendous amount of time testing kids. They become good "testers" but that doesn't mean they will be good scholars and basing admissions on what is now basically "inflated grades" and a good ACT or SAT score means that many incoming freshman may not achieve well in college if that grade inflation and "the only test I have to take is a multiple choice test" trend does not continue.

 

Faith

 

UK high school exams are essay-based, not multichoice, but you can still be coached to excel in them. Oxford interviews every potential student. A large part of the process is finding out which students have been coached to get wonderful grades but who may be at their intellectual limit, versus those who are just itching to go deeper.

 

Laura

[AuntPol]

I, too, am pretty impatient with all these headlines. The contradict each other dreadfully. We read that US high schools are horrible, then we read that high schoolers must have more and more AP classes and perfect SAT scores and prizes for their latest useful invention and gap years saving the world and published papers in their intended field of study to get into college, and then we read that nobody can afford to go to college anymore, and then we read that once there, they aren't learning anything. So according to the media, everyone is getting a dreadful education, nobody can get into college, nobody can afford college, but more people than ever are going. Hmmmm...

 

-Nan

 

:iagree: