Any body out there think Americas academic standards in college have sunken?

Answer 1

Definitely not, if what you mean is that the best colleges are getting less demanding. The evidence definitely contradicts that idea. But possibly you refer to the idea that some kids are going to college who would not have been admitted years ago....

The SAT score averages, GPA averages, number of AP courses completed, etc for the students entering elite colleges are WAY up compared to 20 - 30 years ago. And not just the top ten schools, but many second level schools have had dramatic increases in recent years as well. The average 1960s or 1970s graduate of an Ivy league school, Duke, Stanford, UChicago and other elite schools would have a tough time even being admitted today. My son went to the same top ten college I did, He had to be better prepared in every possible way jsut to get in the door, and he had a much harder and more challenging set of courses than I ever took. That is typical.

The difference between 25 years ago and now is that in the old days only the top 10 or 15% of kids went to college. The kids who were in the middle of their high school classes never went to college. Today over half of all high school grads go to college. So the colleges must deal with kids who are from families that do not have a tradition of higher ed, and who are, at best, mediocre students. Of course, they cannot handle the kind of tough assignments that top students handled in the past.

The best students entering college today are much better than the best students years ago, but the colleges are taking both the best students and the mediocre students.

Answer 2

No question. Just anecdotally, having taught for over 20 years, I can give you the following: When I first started teaching, I gave exams which were twice as long as those I give now during a class period of the same length. Students then rarely complained. Today's students complain bitterly that they can't possibly finish their exams in the time allotted. Textbooks are shorter than they were then, and a number of my colleagues have switched to condensed versions of textbooks because they have had such trouble getting students to do any reading. Students rarely take notes and demand study guides from professors now; twenty years ago, no one had heard of a study guide and everyone took notes. The standard used to be that students were expected to spend 3 hours studying for every hour spent in class; now we are lucky if they spend as much time studying as they spend in class. Students come in with higher SAT scores than ever before, yet many seem to have neither writing nor math skills. I don't think grades have gone up (mine still have the same mean as they did twenty years ago), yet I know that the papers I give A's to would have gotten B's, at best, then, and the B papers would have been lucky to pass.

The problem is that we can only work with what we get. When students come in with no basic skills from high school, we have no more time than we did before to create improvements. Therefore, even if we help a student improve as much as ever, they seem to start out at so much lower a level that the outcomes are lower.

Answer 3

No, there is little research that proves it has. Grade inflation is largely a myth. Though with the right-wing political correctness these days, discourse in university classrooms has certainly sunk.

Answer 4

Yes, material I was dealing with in my final year of high school 35 years ago I would not give to 2nd year university students today.

Answer 5

yes