<p>I think comparing todays college students to those who attended in late 40’s to 60’s is a terrible comparison…a very small percentage of HS students attended college back then, usually the best and brightest…today just about everyone attends college for some period of time, so the % works against todays students…the dumbing down comes to the secondary and tertiary type schools with open enrollment, where graduation rates are very low</p>
<p>I definitely feel like the quality of college education is decreasing. There are a growing number of schools hiring from a limited talent pool. I also think that many college professors are very lazy. In my experience, most teachers, especially in lower-division classes, are content to read an entire lecture off of a powerpoint slide. Often these presentations are provided by the textbook company. So, are colleges providing value through experienced and knowledgeable professors or are they hiring powerpoint-reading education technicians as I like to describe them. (that would be a great resume description)</p>
<p>cobrat – There is no doubt that math is far more accelerated than it was when I was in school, and it wasn’t just my school. The material that my children had in eighth grade Algebra I was just as complex as what I had in tenth grade Algebra II. I’ve talked to parents who grew up in different states and went to different types of high schools, and they agree. Many teachers now complain that students are being pushed too hard to take higher levels of math for which they are not developmentally prepared and that more students are beginning to burn out at younger ages.</p>
<p>I do agree that attention span has dropped (how many movies over two hours come to theaters?) and perhaps work ethic as well, at least with the overall student population.</p>
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<p>Name one “trade school” that is training bioinformaticians. The common thread in ALL of these “is college worth it these days” article, is that they largely focus on folks in the humanities. As soon as he started talking about the student up to her eyeballs in debt, doing a job she didn’t study for I knew what kind of a degree she got.</p>
<p>And while there is some valid criticism of Will’s article, there are some good starter points for debates. The diversity issue (in regards to training, not class makeup) is a good one. Students shouldn’t be on the hook for ANOTHER general education course if they - as adults - feel that they don’t need such personal direction.</p>
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<p>Interesting. While I have heard that mandated math levels for most US high school graduates was far lower than it is now, the '40’s-60’s college grad folks referenced in my previous posts all completed algebra, geometry, and trig at the very minimum at the end of high school and were more than ready for pre-calc/calculus and beyond in college. Some had advanced far enough to skip freshmen calculus…even those who were taking the engineering edition. </p>
<p>This was even less the case if we’re discussing my Chinese-born and Taiwan raised relatives of my parents’ generation. In the 1950’s, my mother was considered a remedial student for taking calculus in the sophomore year of high school. </p>
<p>Most Taiwan-based students on the college track were expected to have covered calculus by the end of 8th grade if they hoped to attain admission to academic high schools critical for admission to university. That was the standard my mother’s siblings all met without any serious issues. </p>
<p>If my mother wasn’t lucky to have made it into that special high school, the path to a university education could have been completely closed to her. As it was, she wasn’t in an enviable position considering all of her sisters were way ahead of her academically and attained admission either to the top university in Taiwan or in the case of one aunt…Cornell.</p>
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<p>According to [Education</a> in Taiwan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“Education in Taiwan - Wikipedia”>Education in Taiwan - Wikipedia) , the expected level of math completion by the end of 9th grade in Taiwan is trigonometry and precalculus (which is 3 years ahead of the normal sequence in the US); completing calculus in 8th grade would be two years ahead of the normal sequence in Taiwan.</p>
<p>This paper [A</a> Comparative Study of Mathematics Education between the Province of Taiwan, Republic of China and the United States.](<a href=“http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/search/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED248142&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=ED248142]A”>http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/search/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED248142&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=ED248142) table 7 (page numbered 35, or page 46 of the PDF) indicates that 10% of secondary schools in Taiwan in 1982-1983 offered calculus and analytic geometry.</p>
<p>Yes, the US is a relative laggard internationally in math education, but it does seem hard to believe that calculus in 8th grade is the normal expected level of math in any country.</p>
<p>OTOH, speaking of calculus, at least some of us went straight from a rigorous pre-calc class in high school, to college proof-based calculus (Apostol.) In fact, lack of pror knowledge of calculus did not seem to put students at a disadvantage, so long as their pre-calc knowledge was sound and they were willing to work at a steady clip.</p>
<p>Frazzledkids and friends are not expected to bother with proof-based calculus unless they are math majors, even if they are required to do the calc through differential equations sequence.</p>
<p>My mom went to med school in China in the 80’s and she doesn’t know a lick of calculus and she still doesn’t. She was supposed to go to an advanced magnet school. So China, a country that has been considered very advanced in math, didn’t always (and still might not) have very accelerated math levels. However, I heard that non-calculus math can be taught more indepth than is usually required.</p>
<p>Also, calculus can be taught on different levels. The Honors Calculus kids in my high school did “know” calc, but the class was a complete joke. On the other hand, the AP Calc class was very advanced and much harder than many college equivalent classes. About everyone in the class got a 5 on the AP test, and nobody has failed for years.</p>
<p>I think the problem with math is that nobody (or rather, few people) wants to try. In math, you can’t BS stuff. It’s either right or wrong, and that’s what makes math hard. I heard few people say “I’m bad at English” or “I’m bad at Geography.” Instead I hear so many complaints about math. To be good at math, you can’t read a Sparknotes and make up stuff. You have to actually do your homework. If everyone did their homework and studied math for hours on end like kids in other countries do, yes we’d be a lot better in math, I promise you.</p>
<p>I think high schools are much tougher these days, with much higher expectations. I went to a very good high school in the 70s. Very few kids were in Honors classes - maybe 10%. They truly were for the most gifted students. I was in the regular classes, got a 3.2 GPA, a 1240 SAT with no prep (no one prepped back then, expect maybe the very top students), and easily got into Penn State main campus, GW, and Syracuse Newhouse School. No sweat.</p>
<p>It’s not like that now. My daughter, who coincidentally seems to be getting around the same GPA as me (but with a heck of a lot more effort, testing, projects, etc.) does not even have a shot at PSU. Heck, she doesn’t even have a shot at West Chester Univ, which used to be the ultimate safety. 40% of her school is taking AP classes and there are a significant # of kids who study past midnight several times a week. </p>
<p>That just wasn’t common 30, 40 years ago. But – and here’s what perplexes me - I don’t see that these kids are any better educated than I was. All that effort, all those advanced classes, and I don’t see a more intelligent populace AT ALL.</p>
<p>Few of us can accurately compare high schools from our generation (1970’s) with our childrens’. Few of us have kids attending the same high school we did, and few of us have accurate memories of what we learned in high school.</p>
<p>I grew up in a primarily blue collar town, where many students went on to work in factories after high school. In my HS there were no AP classes, just one class called “College English”, one calc class and one anatomy and physiology class. There were a multitude of shop classes from basic woodworking to advanced auto mechanics, and welding. I sincerely doubt that my old high school is offering those same classes today. </p>
<p>My kids attend/attended a primarily college prep, suburban public high school where nearly every student goes on to some form of higher education after graduation. There are a plethora of AP classes offered. My kids got a much more advanced education than I did, but in a different time and place.</p>
<p>My kids attend the same suburban HS that I did and the “college prep” classes that we took were nothing like what they do today. They are getting are far superior public HS educational experience. This is not just on paper in terms of the number of AP classes but in actual rigor of content, projects, depth in instruction and discussion etc. There is just no comparison. My parents who attended HS and college in the 50s say the same thing.</p>
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<p>Well, that was the standard in existence in the 1950’s as the aunts/uncles experienced it. </p>
<p>Then again, this was in an era when most elementary school kids who weren’t better than top half were likely to have been discouraged from further education and expected to start apprenticeships or working for a living. </p>
<p>Wasn’t that different from the US just a few decades before according to older childhood neighbors who grew up in the US during the 20’s and 30’s…especially those whose schooling did end at 6th grade when they started apprenticeships/working. </p>
<p>Comparatively speaking, Taiwan-based elementary school graduates are now almost always expected to continue on to junior high. </p>
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<p>I wonder how much of that may have been due to the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) when schools and research institutes were effectively shut down for a decade due to violent Maoist protests/vandalizing campaigns or used as Maoist social-engineering experiments where loyalty to the Maoist orthodoxy and great worker/peasant" class background pedigree were prized over academic achievement by politicized college admission committees…even when most were ill-prepared academically or even illiterate. </p>
<p>A reason why I’ve heard from relatives and friends living/working in Mainland China that many Chinese companies actually make it a point to heavily scrutinize/not count the college credentials of anyone attending Chinese universities during the Cultural Revolution era. Too risky from their perspective considering the quality of admits and the emphasis on heavy politicization over actual academic content. </p>
<p>According to them, the educational institutions didn’t fully recover from the effects of the Cultural Revolution until sometime in the late '80s at the very earliest.</p>
<p>In reference to the differences computers and the internet made; I remember getting so many books for a research paper I was working on in the late '70’s that I fell over when I picked them up off the floor! Because papers were such a hassle, students at the university I attended back then mostly took “bubble” tests as assessments. Rarely were papers assigned. If you were a good test taker, college was a breeze! Now, students at the same university are assigned several research papers per class. Computers and the internet have changed the research landscape.</p>
<p>My name is Isabel, i’m a current high school student, I was wandering what are some smaller colleges (have a small class size no more than 5,000), are located in an warmer climate, and have an affordable cost?!</p>
<p>Class size no more than 5,000? Or total number of students no more than 5,000?</p>
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<p>Well, that might explain why students now spend less time on school. Schools in the past had stupid rules which occupied excessive amounts of time with no educational value.</p>
<p>As for harder vs. easier high school today vs. decades past, I somehow doubt it was hugely different for the masses. If you look at any individual class, I’m almost certain it’s been dumbed down from past to present, but the class requirements are higher. For instance, it used to be in my state (until fairly recently) that only 2 years of math were required, now it’s 4. Someone taking the minimum math requirements now probably is as mathematically proficient as someone taking the minimum math math requirements in the 60s or 70s. I guess I don’t really know other than what I’ve been told by others, but I’m throwing it out there.</p>
<p>I am amazed at how much my kids know. They both worked very hard in high school.</p>
<p>I am totally convinced that previous generations were more literate, however. The first thing I noticed about Ken Burns Civil War documentary mini-series was how literate the seventh grade drop-outs were. Their letters were beautiful.</p>
<p>I think most of this is attributable to a steady reading of the King James Bible, which has some of the most beautiful English ever written, and not school.</p>
<p>Certainly the explosion of electronic media of all kinds has influenced literacy, and most urgently, spelling, because much less time is spent independently with printed materials.</p>
<p>I don’t think this means that students are not learning in college. It means they are learning different things.</p>
<p>As an English prof, I do mourn the lack of overall true literacy, but my students are still bright and hardworking.</p>
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<p>Maybe the standards were higher with those I’ve encountered who attended college in the '40s-'60s, but I heard research papers and bubble tests existed side-by-side. From what I’ve heard…the amount of papers assigned was about the same. However, Profs assigned students heavier reading loads and were much more strict about taking off points for even the most minor grammatical mistakes. </p>
<p>A few Profs I’ve met/read about who started their careers in the 50’s and '60s have noted they’ve had to reduce their assigned reading/problem set workloads starting sometime in the '80s due to increasing complaints from undergrads, their parents, and admins. </p>
<p>However, if your undergrad academic experience consisted of mostly/solely of such bubble sheets, it was widely considered among them as a sign one received a substandard cookie-cutter undergrad education. </p>
<p>Incidentally, they did get on the K-12 teachers’ cases if their children were assigned too many multiple-choice type tests and less papers/long problem sets where you’d actually have to show all your work.</p>
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<p>Annasdad, have you read what Will has been writing for the past decade? Religiously? And without skipping any of his writing? Otherwise such as statement might be questioned for accuracy and integrity. </p>
<p>Fwiw, if George Will were indeed only worth reading --or listening-- every ten years, one ought to wonder about the State of Journalism in the country, as Mr. Will is easily among the very best, most eloquent, and most astute observers in the world. </p>
<p>And, despite your criticisms, his article, as almost everything he writes, happens to be spot-on!</p>
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<p>Are you sure that today’s programs are exempt from busy work that has little educational value? Here is a hint … I and the second letter of the alphabet!</p>