For most of the nation’s youths, making the bachelor’s degree a job qualification means demanding a credential that is beyond their reach. It is a truth that politicians and educators cannot bring themselves to say out loud: A large majority of young people do not have the intellectual ability to do genuine college-level work.
If you doubt it, go back and look through your old college textbooks, and then do a little homework on the reading ability of high school seniors. About 10 percent to 20 percent of all 18-year-olds can absorb the material in your old liberal arts textbooks. For engineering and the hard sciences, the percentage is probably not as high as 10.
You think I’m too pessimistic? Too elitist? Readers who graduated with honors in English literature or Renaissance history should ask themselves if they could have gotten a B.S. in physics, no matter how hard they tried. (I wouldn’t have survived freshman year.) Except for the freakishly gifted, all of us are too dumb to get through college in many majors.
But I’m not thinking just about students who are not smart enough to deal with college-level material. Many young people who have the intellectual ability to succeed in rigorous liberal arts courses don’t want to. For these students, the distribution requirements of the college degree do not open up new horizons. They are bothersome time-wasters.
I addressed a similar article previously and at length. But the more I think about this whole thing, the more I think about three year degrees.
Britain offers three year Bachelor's degrees, but requires no general ed. They only take the classes required for their major. For example, economics students take maths, but not Western Civ. There are a lot of things I admire about the British educational system, but this is not one of them. I believe a narrow education narrows the mind. But the Brits contend that a smattering of coursework only breeds dilettantes.
I'd like to see a hybrid. Colleges should offer a degree in which students could choose to complete only one year of general education requirements, and then proceed into their major full bore for two years. After which time, they would receive a degree. Liberal arts lite, if you will. This seems to be a good compromise between forcing kids and their parents to pay for 4 years of ever increasing tuition, expanding horizons, and not forcing unwilling students to follow many courses of little interest to them for two years.
I recognize the fears that the BA-lite may become the poor man's degree, but I'm not so sure they are valid. Employers care about coursework in the major, and general skills that can be acquired and demonstrated in one year of general ed -- reading, writing, and thinking.
I doubt prestigious universities would offer a lesser degree. Since their prestige is based upon supposed quality, then dumbing it down is not in their interest. Plus, their students presumably have the intellectual capacity and motivation to complete a rigorous four year curriculum. But does this matter? The Ivy League is already the Ivy League. There is already a distinction.
Where I think the biggest problems will arise is the good state schools. The Berkeleys, Virginias, Michigans, Wisconsins, and Texases of the world. They cater to a broad range of students and don't have the financial resources to support all of them. My big fear is that needs-based financial aid would eventual cover only the shorter, cheaper three year degrees. But I think that can be overcome through legislation. Overall, the benefits of shortening the degree seem to outweigh any negatives.
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"Since their prestige is based upon supposed quality, then dumbing it down is not in their interest."
Dumbing it down and having people notice is not in their interest; dumbing it down and palming it off as the real thing is. Hence the magical fact that the average (!) Harvard and Yale student gets an A minus for work that is, at best, what you got a C for in the 1960s. I read somewhere, and now firmly believe, that George Bush's C at Yale would have gotten him an A minus now. At least. So if Harvard, Yale, etc., can get away with another round of dumbing down, they certainly will.
I don't know. From my experience at Georgetown, which I assume is similar to Harvard or Yale in difficulty. I find it seriously doubtful that an 2000s A- equals a 1960s C. Well, perhaps in some disciplines, but certainly not for economics. I would say that it equals a B, maybe B+, but not an A.
But you are correct. There certainly has been inflation.
Harvard and Yale are supposed to be the worst offenders -- not least because their prestige allows them to get away with it. I would say that Harvard and Yale would be more likely to abuse your scheme than would a less elite university, not less likely.
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