Why College Is Less Rigorous Now
Rigor on American college campuses is a thing of the past.
The image of the undergraduate education in the college/universities in recent research is not a pretty one. For many students, freshman year is spent learning skills already covered in high school.
For example, according to Academically Adrift by Arum and Roksa (2011):
more than one-third of freshmen drop out and those that stay show little “improvement in learning” in the first two years of college.
Perhaps more disturbing is the “WHY” suggested by the authors. According to Academically Adrift:
students spend more time in social activities than studying and largely avoid academic challenge. Participation in sororities or fraternities, a major social force on many campuses, clearly slows learning.
Paying for the Party by Armstrong and Hamilton (2013), offers kudos for the fact that our country is committed to state taxpayer funded higher education; 70% of college students attend a public institution and almost 80% of college students attend college in the same state where he/she lives.
But, according to Armstrong and Hamilton, the perception of college as a great meritocracy and socio-economic class leveler simply isn’t true.
The college support structure is not geared to the student who really needs it; a student looking for challenge but little experience finding it. Perhaps he/she attended a small town public high school with limited resources or possibly he/she is the first in the family to attend college.
The less affluent applicant on what the authors refers to as the “mobility pathway” has limited financial resources is on his/her own. Few university advisors have the time or incentive to help.
Full disclosure: The above includes excerpts from two previous articles; e-newsletter #37 from July of 2013 and e-newsletter #51 from June, 2014. Much of the research quoted is from Academically Adrift by Arum and Roksa (Univ. of Chicago, 2011) or Paying for the Party by Armstrong and Hamilton (Harvard, 2013).
David W. Clark, Ed.M. is an independent college admission consultant who has been working with high school students for more than thirty-five years. His website www.collegesearchnow.net is worth visiting and he can be reached there. An archive with a variety of blog postings on the college search process can be accessed there, also.
**Many families of high school seniors have found helpful my suggestions on financial aid: