Once again the Intercollegiate Studies Institute has produced a report saying that America’s college students don’t know enough about basic U.S. history and civics, and blaming a group of top colleges for their students’ plight.
For this year’s report, released today, the institute surveyed 14,000 college seniors and freshmen at 50 colleges. Among other findings, the report, “Failing Our Students, Failing America: Holding Colleges Accountable for Teaching America’s History and Institutions,” says the average college senior knows “astoundingly little about America’s history, government, international relations, and market economy.”
The findings largely parallel those in last year’s report, although a slightly different batch of colleges have been singled out for censure. Last year an article in The Chronicle questioned whether such results indicated a crisis or politically motivated alarmism. —Thomas Bartlett
