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[fiona]

http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/2008/08/2008080101c.htm

This may irritate some people and comfort others.

The Fiona

[spork]

I like his bulleted list.  All of the items represent ways of evading personal responsibility for the consequences of the decisions one makes. 

We have too many colleges and too many people going to college.

[daniel_von_flanagan]

I was largely with him until he used the term "multiple intelligences" nonironically.  - DvF

[ideagirl]

I was largely with him until he used the term "multiple intelligences" nonironically. 

I was with him all the way. I have no problem with that term, though I'm not sure he's using it 100% correctly (i.e per Gardner's theory).

[bms2000]

I unfortunately see his bulleted list as a checklist, describing the students I had in the most recent semester. There have been a few isolated cases of "Who let you into college?" type students before, but this last term they were trucked in by the dozens. I came out of last term utterly demoralized from having to deal with the sheer stupidity of some of the students.

And it truly seemed like willful stupidity - not adolescent laziness, or commuting student exhaustion, or foreign language difficulties. Student after student claimed that "I can't find what I need on Blackboard" despite being shown in class exactly where things were. Two students handed in the exact same lab report, with the names changed - then got all weepy and shocked when I said I was reporting them for academic dishonesty - and then had the gall to ask me for recommendations for summer internships. The guy who missed 1/3 of the classes, knowing that attendance was 10% of the grade, then sent me no less than 10 emails whining about the B+ that he earned. The guy who called me a 'hardass' because I dared to tell him to stop talking in class.

I am incredibly patient with my students, probably to a fault. I always try to give them the benefit of the doubt. But I found myself wanting to line up and slap the majority of the students they saddled me with this year. The department is talking about increasing enrollment, and if this is what we are getting more of, I just want to cry.

[mountainguy]

While I agree with the conclusions that Benton draws about the customer service mentality in academia, I find several of the books that he mentions to be elitist hogwash. Literacy tests for voters? That sounds a bit too close to Jim Crow for comfort. There have always been anti-intellectual forces at work in American culture, and I highly doubt that any easy solution exists for making them go away.

Though I hate to play this card, It's also worth noting that Benton/Pannapacker teaches at Hope College, a private Christian school with a conservative-ish reputation. I wonder to what extent his opinion of college students is colored by a student body that may be more likely than most to buy into the anti-intellectual activities of the American right.

On Edit: We will always have some students who are clueless or just plain lazy. I've posted about mine plenty of times in the fora. But the vast majority of my students are honest, hard-working young people who try their best. I worry that we create a self-fulfilling prophecy when we assume the worst in our students.

[bms2000]

On Edit: We will always have some students who are clueless or just plain lazy. I've posted about mine plenty of times in the fora. But the vast majority of my students are honest, hard-working young people who try their best. I worry that we create a self-fulfilling prophecy when we assume the worst in our students.

That's just what so depresses me about this last batch. I always go in assuming that I'm going to have a great bunch of students, with maybe a few duds. Usually, this is a good assumption. But as the student/dud ratio keeps tipping onto the dud side, it gets harder and harder to maintain that enthusiasm about facing that next bunch.

[kedves]

I don't disagree with him, but I see only his opinion and no evidence of the extent or rate of change of the problem.

I would also like to see some separation of the issues of who is in college and what level of competence they have.  When college became more accessible to less-prepared students, there was a predictable shift in "the average student," the issue about which Spork says, 

We have too many colleges and too many people going to college.

That does not necessarily mean that the students who would have been in college 30 years ago are substantially different today.  Maybe they are, but I would like to see some evidence to consider.

This pattern is going to speed up as universities face the demographic drop-off in availability of 18-year-olds, unless the economy becomes so bad and tuition becomes so expensive that applications shift radically downward and I end up teaching students who belong in a better school but couldn't afford it.  With loans, that's not likely to happen on a large scale.

Some other issues that should be separated are the difference between attitude and ability, and the difference between first-year students and upper-level students.  Only half of students who start college in the U.S. graduate.  I have problems with my upper-level students, but they aren't the same problems I have with my first-year students.

I like articles that trace a moral panic historically, but are the 1960s really the first incidence of this type of book? 

[spork]

[. . .]

Only half of students who start college in the U.S. graduate. 

[. . .]

Which represents a huge waste of resources.

[kedves]

[. . .]
Only half of students who start college in the U.S. graduate. 
[. . .]

Which represents a huge waste of resources.

I have to correct my earlier statement; it's actually over half, about 57% nationally who start college and finish within six years. 

There are big differences by background of student and that is tied to institutional selectivity.  Stabilization in the rate of college graduates is related to slow growth of high school graduation rates rather than changes in college graduation rates once college is started.

Assuming this rate is still a waste of resources, how so? 

I'm not disagreeing, but I'm not sure I agree either.  I would be interested to hear an argument about why it's a waste.  Do students who attend for one or two years not benefit from doing so, not only in terms of future job and income but in terms of the things we more idealistically think college ought to do for a person?  Do we as a society not benefit from their education?

In terms of an individual's future earnings, the most influential predictors are last year of high school (i.e., graduation), first year of college, and graduation year of college (I have heard that the average is five years now, but I don't know if that's true).   You could argue that colleges shouldn't be in the business of reorganizing or maintaining the social class structure, but they are.  If our economy needs people with more-than-high-school education and their higher earnings lead to increased taxes, is that bad?  How is it bad and for whom is it bad?  If our society split even more dramatically into an elite and an other-classes, dropping out this middle group, would that be a good thing?

Students are sorted into better and lesser higher education, but they are also sorted by receiving more or less higher education inside the institution they attend, and this sorting is predictable based on their background.

Speaking from a perspective of self-interest, I'm sure I'd be out of a job if only the best students--those most likely to graduate--were accepted to college.  I am at a less selective institution (in fact, our mid-range ACT and SAT scores are in the same league as Professor Clio's school in the "already gone" thread). 

[ideagirl]

[. . .]
Only half of students who start college in the U.S. graduate. 
[. . .]

Which represents a huge waste of resources.

Can anyone here explain, why is it that 4-year colleges do not offer some sort of associate's degree (or equivalent) as an intermediate qualification, the way that many Ph.D. programs offer an MA/MS en route to the ultimate qualification? If such an intermediate degree were offered, not only would that 43% of students who never graduate actually have something to take away, but it might also make it easier for them to complete their degrees later--instead of hassling over which credits can transfer from their decade-old college experience, they would simply have the first two years out of the way.

I'm oversimplifying here, and obviously for some of them they would still not be able to get a BA in two more years--certain majors might require prerequisites that they don't have, so maybe it'd take them longer. But it still seems like a better idea than just letting 43% of college students wander off into the wild blue yonder with nothing better to put on their resumes but "some college."

[return_to_sender]

I unfortunately see his bulleted list as a checklist, describing the students I had in the most recent semester. There have been a few isolated cases of "Who let you into college?" type students before, but this last term they were trucked in by the dozens. I came out of last term utterly demoralized from having to deal with the sheer stupidity of some of the students.

And it truly seemed like willful stupidity - not adolescent laziness, or commuting student exhaustion, or foreign language difficulties. Student after student claimed that "I can't find what I need on Blackboard" despite being shown in class exactly where things were. Two students handed in the exact same lab report, with the names changed - then got all weepy and shocked when I said I was reporting them for academic dishonesty - and then had the gall to ask me for recommendations for summer internships. The guy who missed 1/3 of the classes, knowing that attendance was 10% of the grade, then sent me no less than 10 emails whining about the B+ that he earned. The guy who called me a 'hardass' because I dared to tell him to stop talking in class.

I am incredibly patient with my students, probably to a fault. I always try to give them the benefit of the doubt. But I found myself wanting to line up and slap the majority of the students they saddled me with this year. The department is talking about increasing enrollment, and if this is what we are getting more of, I just want to cry.

Amen to the quote above.

I have vented about this earlier, students have an enormous sense of entitlement in our campus. One thing that completely pisses me off is that they think teachers are some kind of reference service.  I applying to be housing assistant I need a reference. I am going to be summer camp coordinator I need a reference.  In most instances I simply don't know the student and I have no way of assessing their qualifications for these jobs.

Having said that, yes there is a strong discourse of anti-intellectualism in the US as evidenced by our current presidential campaigns.  In fact anti-intellectualism is a badge of honor, but this varies from institution to institution.  But, if you watched fixed news or faux news or comedy shows like limbaugh on radio...you feel a visceral hatred for publicly professed intellectualism. This anti-intellectualism obviously permeates various levels of society in different ways. John Kerry actually speaks French, slam him.  Current lame duck ruler of the free world can't articulate in his own language. Yeah, great guy, let us elect him and let him go around invading every country in the world.

[finallyfullprof]

At my CC, we do sort of a "reverse degree" program that allows students who come to us for a course or two while they are enrolled elsewhere (or taking time off from that school for whatever reason) to transfer their 4-year credits in and get an associate's degree. That way, even if they never finish at State U, they have at least that credential. As an added bonus, if they transfer in credits and complete our core, they can then take their degree back to State U and not have to take any further classes for core at State U.  (We have a state law that says anyone with an associate's degree in arts or sciences is considered to be a junior automatically and thus exempt from core at the four-year institution.)

I have to agree on the "waste of resources" issue.  The number crunchers have taken over and declared that nothing short of retention, productive grades, and graduation is acceptable.  But what about those who come to college and learn they aren't ready yet? A lot of them end up coming back eventually, but they needed that experience at the time to help them see what they wanted to do with their lives. Similarly, at the CC level we get some people who will sign up for classes just because they are interested in the subject as opposed to needing a degree.  We also serve as the "do over" for some students who are applying to challenging programs and need to retake a course to earn a better grade.  I'd argue that those experiences are just as valuable for our population as those who are on the traditional degree-earning path.

[daniel_von_flanagan]

Can anyone here explain, why is it that 4-year colleges do not offer some sort of associate's degree (or equivalent) as an intermediate qualification, the way that many Ph.D. programs offer an MA/MS en route to the ultimate qualification?
[snip]
it still seems like a better idea than just letting 43% of college students wander off into the wild blue yonder with nothing better to put on their resumes but "some college."

I don't see how having "X degree" on your CV is any better than "2 years of college" if "X degree" means two years of college.

An MA/MS, even if it is given en passent during a PhD program, represents a discrete unit of accomplishment, often the completion of all pre-PhD coursework.  College is generally not done in such discrete packets.  If it was, for example all general education and distribution requirements done first then only courses in the major, then such a degree might make sense. - DvF

[spork]

[. . .]
Only half of students who start college in the U.S. graduate. 
[. . .]

Which represents a huge waste of resources.

I have to correct my earlier statement; it's actually over half, about 57% nationally who start college and finish within six years. 

There are big differences by background of student and that is tied to institutional selectivity.  Stabilization in the rate of college graduates is related to slow growth of high school graduation rates rather than changes in college graduation rates once college is started.

Assuming this rate is still a waste of resources, how so? 

[. . .]

See reply #14 by The Myth.