IRIS login | Reed College home Volume 92, No. 1: March 2013
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"higher ed"
Does College Work?
Considering the enormous
quantities of time, energy, money, and anguish that are invested in higher
education in this country, you might imagine that we'd have more hard data
about how well it works. Yet research on the true purpose of a college
education--whether it produces an educated person--is surprisingly sparse.
A major new book on the subject--Academically Adrift, by Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa--presents plenty of data, and the conclusions aren't pretty. Approximately 45% of the undergraduates surveyed showed no improvement in their overall analytical competence after two years of college, and 36% showed no improvement after four years of college.
"Large numbers of U.S. college students can be accurately described as academically adrift. They might graduate, but they are failing to develop the higher-order cognitive skills that it is widely assumed college students should master," the authors write.
Continue reading Does College Work?
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