<p>Interesting article cites study:</p>
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<p>[Does</a> going to college make you smarter?or poorer? - Manage Your Life on Shine](<a href=“http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/life/does-going-to-college-make-you-smarter-or-poorer-2445161/]Does”>http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/life/does-going-to-college-make-you-smarter-or-poorer-2445161/)</p>
<p>Other interesting findings of this study are: (1) there is a negative correlation between learning and participation in Greek life; (2) the gap in learning between African-Americans and Caucasions widens rather than shrinks in college; (3) students who study alone rather than in group study learn more; (4) college students studied about the same amount of hours between 1925 and 1960, but since 1960 the hours students put into their studies has declined while recreational activity on campus has grown. As President Obama stated in the SOTU address, it is time for American youth to wake up. The youth of China and India have no frisbee courses on their campus lawns, but their academic efforts are surpassing the efforts of young men and women raised on America’s cul-de-sacs.</p>
<p>hah so true… america at its finest</p>
<p><a href=“3”>QUOTE</a> students who study alone rather than in group study learn more
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That’s definitely not an absolute.</p>
<p>And, according to another survey, freshmen are more stressed out than ever…perhaps it is not academics stressing them out.</p>
<p>^ It is academics stressing them out, but only because they make other things a higher priority than academics. And more and more under-qualified students go to college nowadays, stressing them out because they shouldn’t be there in the first place.</p>
<p>I just sent my third kid to college this year and my experience is that at least the application process is a lot more rigorous than in 1979 and much harder to get into. Anemities are really way over the top at some schools.</p>
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<p>I wonder if those students reported on reading they actually did, or number of pages they were assigned. I know in just about every one of my technical classes we’d be told to read a chapter each week, though few of us would actually sit down and read it word for word. It was generally skimmed while trying to find the important equations while doing problem sets. Those problem sets often went 10+ pages each, so I’m certain we would have easily hit the 20 page a semester requirement, too.</p>
<p>Jeez, I wish I had classes with less than 40 pages of reading per week. I read double that for a single class yesterday. And have a little more than that to read tonight for a different class. And more than that tomorrow for another class I have next Tuesday. And 40 pages of CS to take notes on for Monday. -is sad- Where are all these kids going with such lax classes?</p>
<p>As for writing 20 pages…essay wise, I probably write a good majority of 20 pages (if not surpass, as some classes do with essays). Add that in with short writing assignments and it probably adds up to 30 pages or so per class. I can’t imagine less than 20 for a class.</p>
<p>But, then again, one of my majors is English…</p>
<p>Truthfully though, I can see where this is coming from. I haven’t found college as hard as some people described to me. It’s more challenging than high school (by a margin so wide I don’t even want to discuss), but it’s still not the hoards of information and work and nightmarish all-nighters that I was told about. I don’t know if that’s because of me personally or the school itself. But that’s been my observation.</p>
<p>There is a distinct difference between these two questions:</p>
<p>How many pages per week did you read for each class?</p>
<p>and</p>
<p>How many pages per week of your textbook were covered in each class?</p>
<p>There’s also a huge difference in reading requirements depending on the type of major. In mathematics you may only be “reading” 20 or so pages (maybe even far less) per week. But you are also doing dozens of practice problems each week, that take a significant amount of time to learn and understand.</p>
<p>In English, History and Humanities courses you are going to be doing FAR more reading than a math based course. You’re probably reading 100+ pages per week for an English Lit course.</p>
<p>Their “reading” criteria seems like a misguided variable that doesn’t apply to all majors.</p>
<p>The same can be said about their “20 page paper” question. History majors will be writing these frequently. It’s unheard of for a Math major.</p>
<p>I thought 40-60 was common in more rigorous science courses+practice problems (either in book, SI, or prof. assigned) and 100-300 was more common for social science and humanities courses. This is the case here at least (Russian history is pretty close to 100+ pages on average plus you have to reflection essays and a research assignment per “unit” which is normally like a week and this is like the first week of classes).</p>
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<p>Those are very low standards. I did more than that at my NYC specialized public high school…including having to submit a 20 page English thesis on top of my regular workload just to fulfill graduation requirements. </p>
<p>In college, my freshman courses started me out at around 50-100 pages reading a week and it just went up from there. By junior year, I had classes where 500-800 pages/week per class and writing multiple 25-40 page research papers was the norm. </p>
<p>Heck, even the STEM students I knew read much more than 40 pages a week per class when one accounts for the textbook, assigned journal articles, lab manuals, outside sci/tech sources, and problem sets/projects.</p>
<p>I have ~200 pages of reading per week for my humanities course.</p>
<p>College is a business first, academics second. The lavish amenities are way over the top at many schools. Why do you think they cost so much to attend? </p>
<p>Plus, colleges know that they have something most people need to be successful in a very competitive job market; a degree. They know that competition is fierce among students to get in to the best schools, and they thrive off of that. They thrive off of this particular phrase “The college experience.” This phrase is thrown around time and time again…every school gives you that same horse and pony show. </p>
<p>They know that parents are willing to do anything in order to get the best for their kids, Which is why the schools charge so much. They can honestly name their own price and people would be willing to pay for it regardless, especially if the school has some sort of prestige or historical reputation. </p>
<p>It’s sickening to see people that shouldn’t be in college, because they can’t handle the work load and stress. Let alone, pay back loans for years and years on end. </p>
<p>Colleges know they can basically name their own prices. As long as your willing to pay the money, there are many colleges that will accept you. </p>
<p>West Virginia
Coastal Carolina
Bob Jones</p>
<p>University of Phoenix
Strayer U
Kaplan U</p>
<p>If more people were fiscally responsible, and just chose schools based upon their financial situations…I’m sure we wouldn’t owe more money in loans than we do credit card debt. There’s a big bubble about to burst</p>
<p>I’m a teacher and I’m thinking of one specific course in which I assign readings that are, in my opinion, interesting and insightful. I’ve recently upped the amount of reading assigned. Can a student get through my class without reading some (much?) of the material? Sure. But there’s a definite correlation, not only with grades, but with the level of understanding of the concepts we discuss. The nonreaders grasp them at the superficial level (similar to intense conversations at a bar), the readers take things to the next step. Your education, your choice. It’s like going to a banquet where you get to pick the quality of the food: McDonalds, Outback Steakhouse, Kobe Beef…</p>
<p>two thumbs up, one for each of the last two posts and their accurate observations</p>
<p>I wonder if anyone will try to evaluate individual colleges and universities on their curricular standards and how students spend their time. This could give a little more insight into the matter. I know the Princeton Review has the top 20 lists for where students study the most and least, but it doesn’t give the average time and doesn’t give any specifics.</p>
<p>I was stunned how many colleges dont give cumulative finals, just two or three tests/papers. Also, many high schools, in an attempt to keep kids in schools allow kids to skip finals if they have a grade they like and havent missed a specific number of days. This is dumbing down in a subtle but significant way.</p>
<p>Huh
40 still seems like average. For my humanities classes, 40 is maybe a bit more than average assigned pages. Where are people getting even these 100 page reading assignments? Doesn’t that mean finishing the entire book in like a single month? That’s crazy. I’ve never had a class where it was even possible to cover 100 pages in a week… that’s missing out on a lot of material. And in my science/math courses, it’s like 10-20 pages a week. Most stuff is very technical and can take as long to read and fully understand as reading 40 pages of some humanities stuff, so this study = ***???</p>
<p>I wouldn’t say colleges are “dumbing down” for low effort students. I believe they just allow low-effort students to take easy classes and get a degree with little work. The opportunities to learn more or take advanced courses are there. Probably, colleges are offering more and more advanced courses than they ever did before, especially in engineering and science (reflecting advances in those fields).</p>
<p>Colleges are not keen on making you learn or forcing you to take a rigorous curriculum. They have no reason to make you do that. Despite college students anxieties about grades or getting in trouble, the LAST thing a university wants is to kick you out or fail you. That only means one less paying customer. Additionally, college tuition generally does not depend on course-load or course difficulty. From a business standpoint, low-effort students are actually preferred to high effort students. Low-effort students take fewer and lower level courses, incurring fewer costs for the university.</p>
<p>To use the cliche, the moral here is that you are responsible for what you make out of college. It’s not the school’s responsibility to make you learn.</p>