What will college do to/for our kids?

Parents Forum
1

<p>Based on analysis of a huge number of research studies from the 1970s through 2002, comparing entering freshmen to graduates:</p>

<ul>
<li><p>Students make statistically significant freshman- to senior-year gains on a variety of dimensions of learning and cognition.</p></li>
<li><p>Students gain during the college years in their academic and social self-concepts and overall self-esteem … Gains in students’ sense of independence and control over their lives and academic fortunes and in their interpersonal competence and leadership skills appear to accompany gains in self-concept and self-esteem.</p></li>
<li><p>The proportion of students who placed a high value on the intrinsic rewards of education grew by about 20 to 30 percentage points, and students came to attach a lower value to the extrinsic value of employment.</p></li>
<li><p>[In 1991] The research indicated a general shift among college students toward the liberal end of the sociopolitical continuum, with students becoming less doctrinaire in their religious values over time and more likely to support gender equality and to be tolerant of the political, social and religious views of others. … [In 2005] The degree of “liberalization” in student views reported since 1990 … was more limited than that of the preceding decades. The percentage of students on the far left or far right remained virtually unchanged from first to senior year, with shifts of about 4 percent both to the left and the right coming largely from middle-of-the-roaders.</p></li>
<li><p>Undergraduates increase significantly in their use of principled reasoning to judge moral issues. … The main change taking place during the undergraduate years is from using moral reasoning that concedes to societal authority … to using reasoning based on the application of universal moral principles.</p></li>
<li><p>Evidence also suggests that postsecondary education’s influences extend beyond the individuals who attend college to the nature of their children’s lives</p></li>
</ul>

<p>from Ernest T. Pascarella and Patrick T. Terenzini, “How College Affects Students, Volume 2: A Third Decade of Research.” San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2005, pp. 572-582</p>

2

<p>This is news?</p>

3

<p>I suspect that the economic crisis and erosion of job security will do more to the world view of this generation than any college experience could hope to impart, at least for the majority of students who are far from that top 1%, or even the top 10%…</p>

4

<p>Do any of these studies compare the development of college students to that of 18 to 22 year olds who do not go to college?</p>

<p>Four years of employment or military service could also lead to substantial personal growth.</p>

<p>I wonder how much of what these studies have seen is simply a function of four years of maturing, rather than something specific to college.</p>

5

<p>

</p>

<p>Short answer: yes.</p>

<p>Longer answer: The list I cited is from one of the summary chapters of Pascarella and Terenzini. In the detailed report (some 500 pages of it), they consider the question (among others) “What evidence is there that change or development during college is the result of college attendance,” and then provide the answers that research has provided to that question for development of verbal, quantitative, and subject matter competence; cognitive skills and intellectual growth; psychosocial change; attitudes and values; moral development; educational attainment and persistence; career and economic impacts of college; and quality of life after college.</p>