College Students Don't Learn Much?

Recent articles in Yahoo! News and The Chronicle of Higher Education detail new research by sociologists Richard Arum of New York University and Josipa Roksa of the University of Virginia that indicates that college students aren't learning much in their first two years, at least in terms of the criteria layed out by Arum and Roksa:

A study of more than 2,300 undergraduates found 45 percent of students show no significant improvement in the key measures of critical thinking, complex reasoning and writing by the end of their sophomore years.

What surprises me about this report is that critical thinking, complex reasoning and writing, skills that define a liberal arts education, were the three most highly valued aspects of education. I've been hearing so much about the crisis of the liberal arts that I forgot that these were still valued elements at all, let alone the most highly prized elements of learning. Certainly, no ambitious parents are pressuring their children into majoring in English or philosophy, and colleges around the country are beginning to kill off majors like these as as they shrink in popularity and are deemed irrelevant. Why is it that the most valuable skills are those explicitly imparted by disciplines widely forecasted to disappear in the next decade or so?


The question raised by this contrast relates to what we consider a good education: is the key measure of academic success the ability to think complexly and critically? Is it the learning of a particular trade skill? Traditionally, the liberal arts have prepared students for a diversity of paths  in "the real world" by developing students' critical and complex thought. However, more recently, specialized scientific knowledge has become prized by many highly paying careers. The question then stands, do we still need the population to be...well...thoughtful?


If we bypass those questions, however, and go along with Arum, Roksa and the whole traditional of liberal university education, then we have to question the way that college is structured in the United States. What is it about our universities that makes students so miserably unprepared in these three crucial areas? I would argue that a large part of our failure in the liberal arts is related to a devaluing of them in comparison to vocational and scientific education. At most colleges, students must take some sort of liberal arts "core curriculum," a set of classes designed to give students a general liberal arts education. However, there is often little choice in the classes taken, and many are taught by adjunct faculty who teach the same class over and over with little passion. Students, save for the few liberal arts majors (6% as of 2006) or other interested students, don't take them seriously because the classes are not only mandated, but also seen as non-essential to career success. These classes are necessary roadblocks on the road to other, unrelated goals. This is certainly not true of all students, but it is certainly the case at my university and, by all indications, nationwide.


The trend is also influenced by the growing percentage of the population going to college. In the 1800s when the Ivy League was establishing itself, colleges catered to a small number of elite, male students. As higher education becomes more widespread, more societally assumed, and the skills explicitly demanded by society more technical, college becomes more vocational. College is no longer the land of wide green lawns, young upper class males weekending at the polo grounds and leisurely hours with Keats and Byron. It is an economic necessity more commonly provided to students who are not only pursuing specific careers, but also being encouraged and pressured to pursue those careers.


Perhaps college students are faring poorly in these tests because they are being tested on their liberal arts prowess when their focus, and society's focus for them, is vocational. I imagine that the test results would look different if they were administered to history, English, classics, philosophy, sociology or Asian studies majors - any group of students whose educational focus emphasizes critical thought. And, in fact, the report finds, "students who...have heavier reading and writing loads do well." What is it that we are not emphasizing, teaching, or valuing that makes these skills ones that can be ignored?


The question I am left with is: should we change the thrust of our advice to young people, placing more emphasis on "critical thinking, complex reasoning, and writing" skills (essentially: urging them to become English majors) or should we change the factors we test for to more closely resemble what we encourage (skills that lead to career/financial success)? Or, is there some other option? Perhaps as a society we need a population capable of thinking critically, and our measurements of what is necessary in education should reflect this so that we needn't pit thinking critically and being successful against one another.


image taken from http://www.jfinch-online-philosophy.com/