Question for professors and educators.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are students better prepared for college now than 10-15 years ago?

Well, now they carry powerful little computers in their pockets, so they have immediate access to information, and don't need to go to the library. This tends to make today's students somewhat lazy.

And today's students can't write very well. Truth be told, students who can't write well tend not to be able to think very well.

So, no, I'd say today's students are not better prepared than those of 15 years ago; but neither were those of 15 years ago as well-prepared or able as students heading off to college 30 years ago.

Actually, student quality and the quality of higher education in general has been on a declining trajectory for the past 50 or 60 years.

Makes you wonder what the justification might be for the rapid escalation of college tuition over that period.

In the 70s about 12% of the population had a college degree. Now over 1/3 do. So it's really not reasonable to compare those two cohorts.
Are the kids at Harvard today different than the kids at Harvard 50 years ago? My guess is they aren't (except there are more women and minorities now, rather than exclusively rich white guys.)

+1. The education I got at an HYP in the late 90s was certainly more rigorous than the education my mom got there in the mid 60s. I know, because I have all of her old books, including syllabi and graded papers. I had far more reading, for example. I don't know if it's possible to extrapolate the trend out, but controlling for the expansion of the student population, there's no reason to think that today's students are any less capable (though they may whine more) than students 50 or 60 years ago. 60 years ago Math 55 didn't even exist!

The question was if students are better prepared for college not if colleges are more rigorous.

[Anonymous]

This is interesting. My DS is graduating with an English major and is a very strong writer and critical thinker (not so strong in math). I’m hoping these skills will help him land a decent job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, they're really ill prepared academically and emotionally. I've been teaching college for 20 years and in the last 4 years students have gotten much more demanding.

All this AP class is not helping ?

AP classes are taught to the test. And in many schools, once the test is over they stop learning.
Kids get the message from this that the point is not knowledge/education, it is a score/grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are students better prepared for college now than 10-15 years ago?

Well, now they carry powerful little computers in their pockets, so they have immediate access to information, and don't need to go to the library. This tends to make today's students somewhat lazy.

And today's students can't write very well. Truth be told, students who can't write well tend not to be able to think very well.

So, no, I'd say today's students are not better prepared than those of 15 years ago; but neither were those of 15 years ago as well-prepared or able as students heading off to college 30 years ago.

Actually, student quality and the quality of higher education in general has been on a declining trajectory for the past 50 or 60 years.

Makes you wonder what the justification might be for the rapid escalation of college tuition over that period.

In the 70s about 12% of the population had a college degree. Now over 1/3 do. So it's really not reasonable to compare those two cohorts.
Are the kids at Harvard today different than the kids at Harvard 50 years ago? My guess is they aren't (except there are more women and minorities now, rather than exclusively rich white guys.)

+1. The education I got at an HYP in the late 90s was certainly more rigorous than the education my mom got there in the mid 60s. I know, because I have all of her old books, including syllabi and graded papers. I had far more reading, for example. I don't know if it's possible to extrapolate the trend out, but controlling for the expansion of the student population, there's no reason to think that today's students are any less capable (though they may whine more) than students 50 or 60 years ago. 60 years ago Math 55 didn't even exist!

Hate to break it to you, kid, but your mommy has been deceiving you for many moons. You see, HYP were not coed in the mid-60s.

Radcliffe girls took their courses at Harvard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The question was if students are better prepared for college not if colleges are more rigorous.

It would be strange if better prepared students were getting a less rigorous curriculum and vice versa. Those variables are not independent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are students better prepared for college now than 10-15 years ago?

Well, now they carry powerful little computers in their pockets, so they have immediate access to information, and don't need to go to the library. This tends to make today's students somewhat lazy.

And today's students can't write very well. Truth be told, students who can't write well tend not to be able to think very well.

So, no, I'd say today's students are not better prepared than those of 15 years ago; but neither were those of 15 years ago as well-prepared or able as students heading off to college 30 years ago.

Actually, student quality and the quality of higher education in general has been on a declining trajectory for the past 50 or 60 years.

Makes you wonder what the justification might be for the rapid escalation of college tuition over that period.

In the 70s about 12% of the population had a college degree. Now over 1/3 do. So it's really not reasonable to compare those two cohorts.
Are the kids at Harvard today different than the kids at Harvard 50 years ago? My guess is they aren't (except there are more women and minorities now, rather than exclusively rich white guys.)

+1. The education I got at an HYP in the late 90s was certainly more rigorous than the education my mom got there in the mid 60s. I know, because I have all of her old books, including syllabi and graded papers. I had far more reading, for example. I don't know if it's possible to extrapolate the trend out, but controlling for the expansion of the student population, there's no reason to think that today's students are any less capable (though they may whine more) than students 50 or 60 years ago. 60 years ago Math 55 didn't even exist!

Hate to break it to you, kid, but your mommy has been deceiving you for many moons. You see, HYP were not coed in the mid-60s.

Radcliffe girls took their courses at Harvard.

Surely you mean Radcliffe women.

[Anonymous]

No.

Steep decline in writing abilities.

Steeper stratification of society leading to more underprepared students with more challenges and more privileged students who go to college to check a box and not because they want to be there or want to try (there are many many exceptions across the spectrum. , however).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The question was if students are better prepared for college not if colleges are more rigorous.

It would be strange if better prepared students were getting a less rigorous curriculum and vice versa. Those variables are not independent.

It's pretty easy to see the truth of the matter.

Today's students are less-prepared. One measure is the steady decline in SAT scores over many years. The College Board has re-centered the scoring on at least one occasion -- maybe twice. A score of 1250 in the seventies is probably equivalent to a 1450 or 1500 today.

And it's obvious that college curricula are less demanding and less rigorous today.

[Anonymous]

Kids don’t seem to read much. Phones are too appealing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

And it's obvious that college curricula are less demanding and less rigorous today.

I don't think that's obvious in the least. It might be true of some fields - Classics for example. You don't have people coming in with a million years of private school Latin (and sometimes Greek) under their belts. But even there, students are expected to master a wealth of secondary sources that didn't exist in the 60s, and undergraduate theses are more common. So even in that example that I'm conceding to you, things are mixed.

In math and science, I hardly think curricula are slipping. Med school is harder to get into than ever.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are students better prepared for college now than 10-15 years ago?

No, nor do they have the same emotional maturity as students who attended even 10 years ago.

Students, even freshmen, entering 10 years ago acted and presented themselves, for the most part, as adults. Now, it is not at all uncommon to get a phone call or email from a parent of a student. Instead of dealing with issues on their own, they quickly reach out to their parents for assistance.

I now always have an 'out of office' message on my email that says I'll respond in 24 hours and have a little message about not being able to disclose student information to parents. That's how many parent emails I receive through the week. I've even had parents get mad at me and contact the dean of my department, who always sides with professors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The question was if students are better prepared for college not if colleges are more rigorous.

It would be strange if better prepared students were getting a less rigorous curriculum and vice versa. Those variables are not independent.

But we are not talking about better-prepared students. We are discussing students that are not prepared because of their K-12 education. That is what the OP asked. I am a college professor that has taught at a top 10 STEM university, a top 20 university, a SLAC and I now teach at a Tier 1 Public. I would argue that many students over the last 20 years are not prepared for a rigorous curriculum. Most U.S. students are not prepared for a standard college curriculum. Many students haven't learned how to write, go beyond rote thinking and develop problem-solving skills needed to navigate the demands of a college student.

[Anonymous]

It’s not just the undergraduates who can’t write. I work for a university and regularly have to proofread copy written by people with Ph.D.’s and the lack of basic grammar and punctuation skills amongst some of the younger ones is just depressing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The question was if students are better prepared for college not if colleges are more rigorous.

It would be strange if better prepared students were getting a less rigorous curriculum and vice versa. Those variables are not independent.

But we are not talking about better-prepared students. We are discussing students that are not prepared because of their K-12 education. That is what the OP asked. I am a college professor that has taught at a top 10 STEM university, a top 20 university, a SLAC and I now teach at a Tier 1 Public. I would argue that many students over the last 20 years are not prepared for a rigorous curriculum. Most U.S. students are not prepared for a standard college curriculum. Many students haven't learned how to write, go beyond rote thinking and develop problem-solving skills needed to navigate the demands of a college student.

In your opinion, has it gotten worse continously over 20 years, or have students just not been prepared for all of the last 20 years?

If continuously, have you observed any inflection points, or is it just steady downhill?

Lastly, surely not everything has gotten worse. Can you name anything that's gotten better?

ALso, what general field are you in, crankypants?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are students better prepared for college now than 10-15 years ago?

No, nor do they have the same emotional maturity as students who attended even 10 years ago.

Students, even freshmen, entering 10 years ago acted and presented themselves, for the most part, as adults. Now, it is not at all uncommon to get a phone call or email from a parent of a student. Instead of dealing with issues on their own, they quickly reach out to their parents for assistance.

I now always have an 'out of office' message on my email that says I'll respond in 24 hours and have a little message about not being able to disclose student information to parents. That's how many parent emails I receive through the week. I've even had parents get mad at me and contact the dean of my department, who always sides with professors.

+1 In addition to the emails, I had a parent attend a class unannounced to determine the quality of teaching. I had another parent attend a group advising session for new majors. At first, I thought she was a non-traditional student. She wanted to pick classes, see syllabi and demanded that her son enroll in classes during specific days/times. I had to ask her to stop interrupting and allow her child to speak on his own. I felt sorry for the young man-- and he didn't need accommodations. I had a few autistic students bring their parents to individual advising meetings, which I don't think is a problem.