Easily (by a factor of two) the most commented piece in this blog series of the Chronicle is my “Student Evaluations, Grade Inflation, and Declining Student Effort” entry. Now, new and better evidence has emerged that, if anything, strengthens my initial convictions.
Philip Babcock and Mindy Marks are both University of California professors (different campuses) who have delved deeply into various surveys of student time use, and have related that data to other research that plausibly could explain the very real and substantial decline in the work effort of students. While some of their research is coming out in prestigious academic journals (the Review of Economics and Statistics and Economic Inquiry), the findings are nicely encapsulated in a short study done for the American Enterprise Institute. See “Leisure College, USA: The Decline in Student Study Time” available on the AEI web site.
Babcock and Marks show how the decline in hours worked by students is real, not explained by changing survey techniques or even the changing nature of college students. The decline is universal, seen fairly uniformly in different disciplines. Moreover, it cannot be explained by improved technology (e.g., computer search engines reducing manual library search time), increases in student employment work hours, etc. However, the reduction in incentives for students to study, as evidenced by grade inflation, is a likely explanation for much, I would surmise most, of the observed decline.
Moreover, Babcock and Marks present some evidence by others that suggests this decline has potentially real and meaningful (or as academics love to say these days, “non-trivial”) effects on labor productivity, human capital formation and economic growth. Some evidence suggests that the nominal, or reported, rise in student grades actually significantly understates the amount of grade inflation. For example, Ralph and Todd Stinebrinker suggest a 40 minute reduction in daily study time is associated with a 0.24 point decline in student grade point average (GPA) –using the conventional four point scale. Since the decline in student studying is more than twice that great since 1961 on a daily basis, the implied fall in GPA associated with reduced work effort is at least 0.50 (half a grade). Since nominally, GPAs have risen about .50 since 1960 or so, it appears that correcting for falling standards, the standard-adjusted GPA increase has been more like a full grade level (from a C+/B- average to something like a B+/A- average). Academic success per hour, as measured by grades, has soared, despite no evidence that today’s students are on average better prepared for college (and some evidence to the contrary).
Partly because of rising wealth and incomes, and partly because the Feds have vastly increased the practice of dropping money out of airplanes over student homes (or the equivalent, through student loan and grant programs), universities are becoming more like country clubs. But a third and maybe more important reason is that the students have so much free time, and they need to do something else beside drink and have sex. Hence the phenomenon of the climbing wall, the indoor track, the countless health-club like weight facilities, luxurious student union buildings, etc.
Universities are overpriced and overfunded by naive but well-meaning third parties. This has contributed to college staffs becoming spoiled and often somewhat juvenile acting rent-seekers (they go on tantrums if they don’t get what they want). Meanwhile, their equally spoiled students too often are over-sexed booze hounds who are largely clueless about how our civilization evolved, what makes us rich, and what distinguishes right from wrong.
The most rational argument against the above goes like this: “we are interested in outcomes, not inputs. The financial premium for college completion is greater than ever, suggesting the productivity gains associated with college have increased over time.” While a respectable argument, I think it too weakens upon close inspection, particularly given the increased use of colleges as screening devices (picking up on early research by Spence, Taubman and Wales and others). This, in turn, was no doubt partially motivated by the changing legal environment, most importantly exemplified in Griggs v. Duke Power, a Supreme Court decision that probably had an enormous influence on the college cost explosion, credential inflation, and a host of other problems gracing the American academic scene. More about that, however, in another blog.
24 Responses to Colleges as Country Clubs
gahnett - August 15, 2010 at 1:03 am
“Meanwhile, their equally spoiled students too often are over-sexed booze hounds who are largely clueless about how our civilization evolved, what makes us rich, and what distinguishes right from wrong. “LOVE it…Please, could someone tell me what makes us rich? I’m serious…
mmccllln - August 16, 2010 at 9:24 am
I’m with gahnett on that one. That’s one of the better lines I’ve read in a long time. Thanks for an early Monday morning smile.
jrlupton - August 16, 2010 at 9:31 am
I agree that grade inflation is a problem, and I find your analysis very helpful. I don’t recognize my students, though (at the University of California, Irvine) in your description of over-funded, spoiled, tantrum-throwing brats.
ksledge - August 16, 2010 at 10:12 am
This is so true. I worked much harder in high school than I did in college because there were so many college classes in which I could put in less than 100% effort and get an A–across disciplines. At my high school, the grade distribution was overall much lower and the standards for “A” grades were extremely high. My ending GPA in college was also much higher than my ending GPA in high school. Not surprisingly, I learned much more in my college courses with higher standards than in the ones with lower standards. I ultimately enjoyed these harder classes more because of it. I’d often put in extra effort in the easy classes even though I knew I was locked in for an “A” because I truly wanted to learn more. But if I’m honest with myself I’ll admit that I sometimes realized I had an “A” already, and therefore spent my extra time/energy on classes in which a great grade was not as easy to obtain.As an instructor I now try to have my class be that one that has higher standards than the others students are taking and will therefore demand more time so that my students can learn more. But of course sometimes one gets punished in the evaluations for taking that approach.
wmu78 - August 16, 2010 at 10:13 am
I wouldn’t use the term “country club;” I prefer (not my words) “land-locked cruise ship.” All the amenities of such a vessel with some enrichment activities (you and I would call them “classes”) to break up the non-stop food and frolic.
pgrudin - August 16, 2010 at 10:19 am
Why do you see this as an “innovation”?
optimysticynic - August 16, 2010 at 10:41 am
“This has contributed to college staffs becoming spoiled and often somewhat juvenile acting rent-seekers (they go on tantrums if they don’t get what they want).”Huh? Connection to the central thesis?
osholes - August 16, 2010 at 12:06 pm
Sweeping statements are fun (I make them all the time in conversation) but they are rarely justified in an argument about trends in higher education.I posit that a major factor in reduced study time is the huge increase during the 20th century in the percentage of high school graduates going to college. College was once reserved for elite and dedicated students (plus some rich slackers, to be sure). No longer. It now must serve a wider audience with a wider range of motivation. I suspect that as the percentage of people getting college degrees has gone up, that increase has caused the mean study time to gone down. That probably isn’t the whole story, but then, grade inflation probably isn’t the whole story, either.
richardgabriel - August 16, 2010 at 12:32 pm
In the words of the great Will Rogers, “Things ain’t what they used to be and probably never was.” Maybe Vedder knows all about the rutting sexual habits of undergraduates and their boozy milieu; and how civilization evolved, and what makes us rich (sic), and right from wrong (I’d really love to sit in on that lecture!). What he hasn’t figured out is the judicious use of hyperbole in his writing. At the risk of entering into the impervious sphere of Vedder’s all-encompassing insight into everything, let me humbly introduce a concept from his very own discipline to begin to explain why “colleges are like country clubs.” Demand.
usaret - August 16, 2010 at 1:34 pm
With something like 42% of first-time freshmen attending community colleges (I teach at one), I would say that Vedder’s overgeneralizations apply, if at all, to the increasingly ssmall percentage of undergraduate students who are able to attend residential colleges. My students run the gamut from committed to apathetic (not unlike my own college classmates in the class of 1973). They do expect higher grades for less work, but part of my job–and the job of most college instructors, I bet–is to establish high standards and show them how to meet them. Some do, some don’t. Vedder’s screed, however, is addressed to college faculty, not students–he’s pointing his finger at the professoriate and telling us all we’re the lazy ones who assign less work for higher grades. And I think he’s more wrong than right on that point.
rkahhamilton - August 16, 2010 at 1:40 pm
As universities and community colleges have become more and more focused on graduation rates, faculty have been not-so-subtly pressured to keep the D’s and F’s to a minimum. And why are colleges ghoulishly focused on graduation rates? Because state legislatures tie funding to them. Until legislators, the public, and university administrators acknowledge that, many faculty, for fear of losing their jobs, will continue to coddle, and students will continue to skate.
_perplexed_ - August 16, 2010 at 1:54 pm
Don’t know about the OSU students that Mr. Vedder might know, but at my R1, over a quarter of the “full-time” students are employed and work at least 30 hours per week, and the median number of hours spent at work slightly exceeds 20 hours per week. Maybe that’s why there is less time studying than in the good old days.
ovpstaff - August 16, 2010 at 3:00 pm
This rant, among others of his, just causes me to wonder why Vedder bothers working at a university. Sounds like someone needs to retire–or, better yet, go work for the private sector that he so reveres.
softshellcrab - August 16, 2010 at 5:46 pm
A couple of the above (osholes & perplexed) commented that the reason for less studying may be in large part due to the fact that we now have students from a much wider economic strata going to college, and many need to work to support themselves while in school, which may have been much less the case many years ago when it was more just the wealthier families who sent children to college.There may well be some validity to that. However, it does not seem to explain how students get away with less studying. That is more the issue. How are they studying less, yet getting higher grades? This is part of what Mr. Vedder discusses, the dropping of grading standards and rigor, and the “pass them through” mentality that many (not all) schools and programs seem to have today.
walrus - August 16, 2010 at 7:34 pm
@softshellcrab: I think @rhahhamilton has addressed that issue: They’re studying less because we’re under more pressure to cater to them as long as they come to class and turn in (most) assignments (relatively) on time. Let a student challenge a grade and a teacher must be prepared to prove that the student did not earn a better grade. This is especially true as our culture is increasingly eager to view students as “clients” or “consumers” of education, which means their immediate satisfaction is of primary importance. Add to that larger proportions of the faculty are working as adjuncts or otherwise non-tenured and teaching 4 or more classes a term, and it’s not to difficult to figure out how maintaining high standards becomes almost impossible. Lack of respect, lack of pay, and lack of time tend to work against that.
dank48 - August 17, 2010 at 12:03 pm
Have you seen the commercial with the male student sitting on the floor outside his dorm room because his roommate does a lot of “private tutoring”? Fortunately, our boy has his computer with him, and thanks to his wonderful computer and its wonderful operating system (Windows 7, which the poor doof, like the other poor doofs in the other commercials, takes credit for), he’s not left out on a limb.And why? Because his computer helps him keep up with his studies, read articles on line, write that paper? Nooooooo, his computer saves him from getting behind on his television viewing. Well, thank God for that. Not to mention the conscienceless cretins in Redmond, Washington.Now, of course there’s supposed to be a humorous element to this, but the underlying assumption is still that being a “student” means a different set of concerns from anything that might have to do with education. What does this say about our society? That not only is the United States of America a temporary arrangement? That it’s just as well?
bscmath78 - August 31, 2010 at 5:21 pm
Back in the early 20th century the elite universities (excluding places like the University of Chicago) were country clubs and were largely inhabited by students who had much better things to do than study. Jerome Karabel’s “The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton” describes the extensive efforts to keep out certain groups of students. It discusses F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel “This Side of Paradise” which stated Princeton’s “reputation as the pleasantest country club in a America” (p74). Page 66 quotes Woodrow Wilson’s wife as saying Wilson (then the new President of Princeton, later President of the United States)had “ruined…the most agreeable and aristocratic country club in America”. But we learn that Wilson was defeated in his attempt to shift the emphasis to learning.On page 10 and elsewhere you can read about Harvard’s attempts to cap the number of “intellectuals” at 10%. “Intellectuals” being the term to describe students who were interested in working hard at academic subjects (“grade grinds”).Page 77 of Gerald Graff’s “Professing Literature: An Institutional History” has E.H. Magill giving 5% as a optimistic figure of students getting value from their professor’s studies (this in talking to the MLA (Modern Language Association) in 1892).It should be remembered this was the state of affairs when these elite universities admitted no women (or a girl who at 12 passed the Yale entrance exams in 1783) and worked hard to ensure that most students were the sons of elite society, the products of elite Protestant private prep schools, with no interest in academics and the willingness to pay full price.
bscmath78 - August 31, 2010 at 5:50 pm
Don’t think that things were much better at the “Seven Sisters”.”The View from Afar” contains a 1972 lecture by the French structural anthropologist Claude Levi-Stauss to Banard College alumni, in which he recounts his first lecture at Barnard in the early 1940′s. He is filled with panic, because all his students are knitting. All they are doing is knitting (see page 102). No one is taking notes. Strangely, he believes they were actually at least listening because at the end of lecture, one “girl” (he still remembers what she looked like and what she was wearing) informs him that desert and dessert are different words. It would appear there were no questions and no else commented. It appears he didn’t ask any of them any questions. Levi-Stauss at the time was a refugee from Hitler and didn’t speak English well, so was somewhat more vulnerable than the modern day adjunct or grad student giving lectures. Sadly, Levi-Strauss says nothing about the meaning of knitting instead of note taking, probably since the 1972 lecture was probably geared to fund raising for Barnard. Of course, back in the 40′s if you were at Barnard, you probably didn’t need to know anything about the Nambikwara.
bscmath78 - August 31, 2010 at 8:08 pm
The “cooling out the mark” role of educational institutions, has received some attention in some quarters. They reference “On Cooling the Mark Out: Some Aspects of Adaptation to Failure” by Erving Goffman. Typically the student, applicant or employee plays the role of “mark” in these assessments. The idea that society, the taxpayer, the citizen or the employer is the “mark” seems rarer. Though every reference to educational institutions as a “Ponzi scheme” or “scam”, is implicitly suggesting at least one “mark”.This is not incompatible with universities as country clubs.”Lost in the Meritocracy: The Undereducation of an Overachiever” by Walter Kirn seems to describe a country club world (or at least a club world at Princeton) and a variety of “marks”. At one point, Kirn has an intellectual discussion in a bar with a professor who resembles Julian Jaynes, the author of “The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind”. This is one of the points at which there seems to be a wistful element of concern that the hero is cheating himself.
bscmath78 - September 3, 2010 at 8:24 pm
On might consider the changes over the decades in awareness and understanding of the life and scientific stories of:- Barbara McClintock- Marie Curie- Lise Meitner- Rosalind Franklin- HypatiaEven when the story ends in a Nobel Prize (or two) the stories are of difficulties and challenges (as well as scientific triumphs). One might imagine that students have shifted to ever easier courses of study and ever lower levels of time investment, because they sense that the odds are very much stacked against them if they seek “the life of the mind”. Instead they may be lured by the much easier path of financial security and “ordinary happiness”, which requires far less time, effort, talent, drive and luck. The market signals since at least 1970 have been very strong, get into a profitable profession or business, do not move science forward.
bscmath78 - September 4, 2010 at 1:12 pm
I meant to write “One might consider…” in my Sept 3 comments.My Sept 3 list of scientists is not intended to be the best or all encompassing.
bscmath78 - September 4, 2010 at 1:35 pm
In many institutions, the students may be reacting to the dismal economic situation of many of the grad students, postdocs, adjuncts etc. that they see lecturing to them and marking their work. They might see this as evidence that focusing on academics is not just a waste of time, but actually makes the odds of financial success, self-respect or happiness much worse.Alternatively, they may be reacting to the general contempt towards academic effort and reporting the study hours that fit their self-image. Maybe in 1961 they lied about doing more studying than they actually did. Maybe now they lie about doing less studing than they actually do. Or maybe there is just less busy work with calculators, cut and paste, spreadsheets and other software, busy work and cheating can be done much faster.In “The Simpsons” we see Lisa, Martin Prince and the few others who focus on academics, under constant pressure. The general media message is against spending time on academics. Students might learn that it best to hide their academic interests and efforts, even in surveys.
bscmath78 - September 4, 2010 at 3:33 pm
This thread links back to an earlier blog entry “Learning From Socrates and Adam Smith on Financing Universities”, which was about students paying professors directly. The earlier entry started with Socrates as an example. Socrates is a bad example, since Socrates famously didn’t charge anything! He spoke for free! He contrasted himself with the Sophists, who charged their students. One gets the impression Socrates was quite contemptuous of the Sophists.Socrates did not take attendance. He didn’t assign homework. He didn’t provide grades. There are no reports in the Dialogues that his students studied. He didn’t write papers. He is not known to have written anything. He seems to have done no research. He lacked academic credentials and didn’t provide any credentials to his students.With Socrates we seem to have student as flaneur. Today, Socrates is held in high regard, yet his students apparently did no studying. Admittedly, an unreliable, hostile, source, the satirist Aristophanes, claimed there was a “Thinkery”, along with showing that parents and society were displeased with the education provided to students. In “Meno”, Socrates (as written by Plato), is quite convincing that he doesn’t know what virtue is and is equally convincing that it cannot be taught. Meno seems to have received no compensation for his side of the dialogue. Socrates was not part of a university. He spoke in the open air (ignoring the claims in the “The Clouds”) of Athens and as reported in Plato’s Dialogues seemed to like accosting Sophists in the streets, without providing them any compensation. Socrates taught Xenophon, who went on to fight for Sparta and Persia, the great enemies of Athens. Socrates taught Alcibiades, the serial betrayer. Alcibiades betrayed Athens to Sparta. He then betrayed the Spartan king and then backed the Persians, the traditional enemy of Athens, Sparta and most Greeks.Socrates was tried in an open trial, by the citizens of democratic Athens and sentenced to death, but Plato and Xenophon tell markedly different stories of the trial. The value of students studying is quite unclear given the example of Socrates. Some academics might choose to regard the multiple treasons of Xenophon and Alcibiades as examples of applying “critical thinking” or how with a “liberal arts” education you can justify any crime or how thinking “outside the city state” leads to personal success and fame.
bscmath78 - September 7, 2010 at 2:32 pm
Page 3 of the AEI study, referenced by this blog entry, informs us that there was approximately an 8 hour reduction in average study time between 1961 and 1981 and approximately a 10 hour reduction between 1961 and 2003. Which in absolute terms means 80% of the reduction in studying hours had already occurred by 1981. Given that it is now 2010, it seems a very, very, long time for this discovery to come to light. It also appears that the bulk of the absolute decline, occurred at least 30 years ago, so one might expect to find major evidence, of suspected major causes, over 30 years ago.Page 2 of the study, informs us that the 1961 data comes from Project Talent. Yet, David B. Orr’s article “Project Talent: A National Inventory of Aptitudes and Abilities”, which appeared in the March 1961 issue of “The Phi Delta Kappan”, informs us that Project Talent was based on testing high school students in each of the grades 9 through 12, in the Spring of 1960. The possibility of studying the impact of high school homework policies is the last in a list of possible follow-up activities. It is unclear what information on high school test results or high school policies, can tell us about actual university student study behavior (except possibly as predictors of that behavior).In Jerome Karabel’s “The Chosen”, World War II, the Manhattan Project and the Cold War, are cited as encouraging changing ideas about a desirable student population. Various events occurred, that might have caused all players (students, parents, professors, administrators, government officials) to think that more studying was important to the future of the nation. To pick an arbitrary set of events (some mentioned by Karabel):- 1957 – Sputnik- 1958 – National Defense Education Act of 1958- 1959 – Castro seizes power in Cuba- 1960 – U-2 shot down, Gary Powers displayed by the Soviets- 1960 – John F. Kennedy elected- 1961 – Yuri Gagarin, Bay of Pigs, Berlin WallOne might imagine that some of this might have caused some students to study more. Or caused the admission of more students likely to study harder. Or caused employers to hire students who studied harder. Or caused professors to reward those who studied harder.The very fact that there was a Project Talent, indicates there was an increased interest in the talents of high school students and the implications for their future.By 1981 (the next data point), the world was very different. One might imagine that the mix of fear, optimism and idealism, at the start of JFK’s Camelot, would be long gone and with them the pressing need and desire to study to defend the nation.