This is a very interesting study. Which college will you send your kids to? Will you send to an elite school where they unteach your kids of truth and fill with their propaganda or to an average school where they teach the truth. “… scientific evidence that, for the very first time, reveals how much American colleges and universities—including some of our most elite schools—add to, or subtract from, their graduates’ understanding of America’s history and fundamental institutions.” These lists will show you which school is adding and which school is subtracting to/from students’ knowledge.
Here are some of my questions after reading this study.
- Are college students getting dumber?
- Are unqualified students getting into colleges?
- Are college standards lower now?
- Are college grades being inflated, therefore lower grade will get you graduate with good grades?
- Are college profs doing more harm than good in order to place their political agenda?
Another interesting discovery is on the page 9 in Additional Findings; FAMILY MATTERS. “There is now a large body of educational research demonstrating that family structure significantly influences student learning, and the evidence on civic learning further corroborates this. Clearly, what the university or college does is paramount in terms of learning during the undergraduate years, but we cannot ignore the background role the family plays. Family influences for which data were collected and which were associated with increased civic learning included the parents’ marital status, their education levels, and the extent to which parents discussed public affairs with their children.”
One of the weakness of this study is that there is no evidence that students are learning less than, say 10 years ago. There is no data for the comparison. I would like to see the comparison done in 10 years.
But the truth is that it doesn’t matter whether you know this stuff or not. The name of the school carries the economical advantages that we seek. Students need that name of the school on their resume to get a good job, not what they know.
j-)
