The last bubble to pop? The education bubble, says Al Fin (got the link via Simoleon Sense).
Cost of tuition has risen…
Forty-seven universities have built billion-dollar endowments, while doubling their average tuition from 1995 to 2005. The average US public college tuition rose 35% between 2001 and 2006, while private college tuition rose 11%.
While quality of education has declined…
SAT scores peaked in 1964. Twenty-two percent of college freshmen need high school-level math. From 1995 to 2005, reading proficiency among Americans with graduate degrees declined from 51% to 41%. A 2006 study found that 20% of students pursuing 4-year degrees had only basic quantitative skills, and half could not perform complex literacy tasks. In the early 1960s, the average college student completed 60 hours of schoolwork per week. In 2003, only 33% of freshman reported 6 or more hours per week. Those doing less than one hour per week doubled over 16 years to 16%. Meanwhile, 47% receive A average grades, compared to 18% in 1968.
With this knowledge, I am beginning to feel more and more that my college degree means a lot less than I thought it did.
As suggested by the doctor quoted in the article, colleges and universities should fire the counselors, send the deans back into the classrooms, dismantle the football teams and turn the stadiums into playgrounds for kids, ban fraternities and sororities, and board up the student-activities office. Once you have more administration focused on actually teaching kids and once you free up the kids’ time, I think a school should probably double or triple the current amount of work required to just to PASS the class.
What would be the result? I think you’d probably see a lot of students leave and also a decline in applications. But the end result would be smarter kids and the school would have a growing reputation for academic excellence.
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