A new report, issued by the authors of the bookAcademically Adrift, bolsters the notion that college students are spending less time studying than earlier students and are "failing to develop the broad-based skills and knowledge they should be expected to master." Professors Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa surveyed 3,000 students on 29 campuses and found that--based on transcripts, surveys and the standardized test the Collegiate Learning Assessment--45 percent of students showed "no significant gains in learning" after two years in college. Their research also finds that students spent 50 percent less time studying "compared with students a few decades ago."
A minority of them start with a good high-school education and attend colleges that challenge them with hard work. They learn some things worth knowing. The rest--most college students--start underprepared, and go to colleges that ask little of them and provide little in return. Their learning gains are minimal or nonexistent. Among them, those with a reasonable facility for getting out of bed in the morning and navigating a bureaucracy receive a credential that falsely certifies learning. Others don't get even that.
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