Fifty colleges tested freshmen and seniors to learn where students improved the most and by how much in their knowledge of American history, government, America and the World and the market economy.
In one third of the colleges the students actually grew more stupid. That is, the students knew less about America AFTER college than when they started.
Am I the only one that is scared?
Find Harvard...Stanford. University of Chicago went DOWN! MIT went down! Yale went down!
Cal Berkeley sits next to the bottom of the list with a students scoring 5.6% overall WORSE than when they were freshmen.
It seems that the more 'elite' the school the worse the results - Johns Hopkins is at the bottom. Cornell is third from the bottom.
Something is seriously wrong with the picture when students in American colleges know less about America going out of college than when going in.
What do you think?
1 Rhodes College +11.6%
2 Colorado State University 10.9
3 Calvin College 9.5
4 Grove City College 9.4
5 University of Colorado, Boulder 8.9
6 Spring Arbor University 8.3
7 University of New Mexico 8.2
8 University of Mobile 7.5
9 Florida Memorial University 6.8
10 Central Connecticut State University 5.0
11 George Mason University 5.0
12 Youngstown State University 4.9
13 North Carolina Central University 4.8
14 Utah State University 4.5
15 Lynchburg College 4.0
16 Catholic University of America 3.2
17 University of Massachusetts, Boston 3.0
18 Princeton University 2.8
19 Eastern Kentucky University 2.7
20 Baylor University 2.6
21 West Texas A&M University 2.5
22 University of South Alabama 2.0
23 University of Texas, Austin 2.0
24 Wheaton College 1.9
25 Harvard University 1.9
26 University of Washington 1.8
27 Appalachian State University 1.7
28 University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill 1.6
29 Capital University 1.3
30 American University 1.0
31 Stanford University 0.9
32 University of West Florida 0.7
33 Washington & Lee University 0.2
34 Dartmouth College 0.1
35 University of Michigan -0.1
36 Ithaca College -0.2
37 University of Chicago -0.3
38 Massachusetts Institute of Technology -0.4
39 Williams College -0.7
40 University of Florida -0.8
41 Wofford College -0.9
42 University of Virginia -1.1
43 Georgetown University -1.2
44 Yale University -1.5
45 State University of West Georgia -2.0
46 Duke University -2.3
47 Brown University -2.7
48 Cornell University -3.3
49 University of California, Berkeley -5.6
50 Johns Hopkins University -7.3
First of all, the study only tested four subjects; are those the only important subjects?
Second, seeing the small number of subjects actually tested, it's unlikely that a number of people major in those particular fields, making them electives/required outside coursework for other students. It's much more likely that a student will have completed the coursework in either high school or in the early years of undergrad, making it less easily recalled at the end of senior year
Next, the percentages are relatively small in those areas, and shouldn't really be taken seriously...honestly, i think a year after i learn something, i'm lucky if i only lose .5% of it, especially if it's relatively impractical knowledge like history
Next, if the schools really wanted a true measure, they should broaden the study to include more subjects, like literature, math or sciences, which i'm sure if you combined those three (along with engineering, which falls into the math/sci category) most colleges will have at least 50% of the students majoring in those subjects. Are those worthless majors?
Last, if the true purpose of undergraduate education is to teach a student how to think (which was the principle on which most liberal arts colleges, and most colleges in general, are/were founded), why not test logic? Isn't that a very important topic of how to think?
Let's also not forget that there is no mention as to the sampling methods or to the uniformity of the tests. There is no mention that the same test was given out to students, or what sampling was used to pick those students, or even how many students from each school were sampled. With this lack of statistical reliability underscoring any conclusions drawn from the data, it's hard to take this "study" seriously.
Posted by: Prasanna Swaminathan | January 9, 2007 3:53 PM | Permalink to Comment