jem
Registered: Sep 2001
Posts: 14304 |
04-02-12 06:32 PM
Intro to paper...
http://www.nas.org/images/documents..._Competence.pdf
In recent years, study after study has found that a college education no longer does what it should do
and once did.1
Whether these studies look directly at the capabilities of graduates, or instead at what
employers find their capabilities to be, the result is the same: far too many college graduates have not
learned to write effectively, they can not read and comprehend any reasonably complex book, they
have not learned to reason, and their basic knowledge of the history and institutions of the society
in which they live is lamentably poor. “An astounding proportion of students are progressing through
higher education today without measurable gains in general skills” is the anguished conclusion of a
respected national study, entitled appropriately Academically Adrift.2
Further, students now spend on
average little time studying outside the classroom, and the demands made of them by their faculty
teachers have been correspondingly reduced.
Is it possible that the University of California is an exception to these national trends? Unfortunately, we
can be certain that it is not. First, these national studies all include California, and none of them note
any fundamental differences across states. Second, local studies of these issues always confirm the
findings of the national studies. For example, the national finding that students now spend relatively
little time studying outside the classroom has been confirmed by a study specific to UC that reached
identical conclusions. A recent study of higher education in California concludes: “The California that
many like to think of as a leader in higher education is average at best and trending in the wrong
direction.”3
Public confidence in academia is dropping as the general public begins to understand that a college
education is now much less likely to improve reading, writing, and reasoning skills, as well as general
knowledge, than it used to. And this is happening just as the cost of a college education has been rising
much faster than inflation. Students are being asked to pay considerably more and get considerably
less. We are now seeing much increased concern with student debt and rising tuition costs. As this
concern about cost joins with the growing concern about quality, the University must soon face a major
crisis of public confidence.
The findings of these studies match all too well the specific complaints that are now commonly
heard about the manifestations of a politicized higher education: that requirements for coursework
in American history and institutions have been dropped, that writing courses often stress writing far
less than tendentious political topics; that prescribed books are frequently no more than journalistic
presentations of a simple political message instead of the more complex writings appropriate to an
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