I was shocked when some of my classmates raised complaints about the group presentations scheduled for the end of the week.
“We haven’t had enough time!”
Later that day I received an email telling me that the group presentation had been moved to a week past the original date. I could not believe that an age-old (at best, high school) strategy had swayed a college professor.
Stuart Rojstaczer, an outspoken critic of grade inflation whose work was recognized in The Washington Post, writes about the findings of his work: “During this era, which has yet to end, student course evaluations of classes became mandatory, students became increasingly career-focused and tuition rises dramatically outpaced increases in family income. When you treat a student as a customer, the customer is, of course, always right.”
According to Rojstaczer’s data, before the Vietnam War, the most common grade on a college campus was a C. By 1973, A’s were twice as common as they were before the 1960s accounting for 30 percent of grades. By 2013, 45 percent of all A-F letter grades were A’s.
It’s not simply that professors have changed their mindset to service their consumers with a higher grade than deserved; students spend far less time studying in this era of grade inflation, which in my opinion, creates a spiral of doing less with the reward for more.
A research paper published in 2010 titled “Leisure College, USA” released that study time for full-time students at four-year colleges in the U.S. fell from 24 hours per week in 1961 to 14 hours per week in 2013.
It has to go back to the part about college tuition rising exponentially and students becoming more career-focused. I would much rather spend time at my internship than study for my classes, although honestly I don’t need to put in very much time.
So on goes the extra-curriculars, the intramural soccer, the pottery and violin and dance lessons … and less and less my college experiences become about the courses State is offering.
Another important factor that can’t be ignored is the correlation between studying time and the major a student has chosen. I can’t say that NC State students need harder work and more hours from my perspective as a political science student. The purpose of this piece is to display data that nationally, students are studying less and grade inflation is a significant problem.
I doubt State is free from these issues, in fact I know I experience it quite often. When my classroom full of economics students was asked who held a part-time job, nearly everyone’s hand was raised.
Whether it’s a reflection of professors caring more about the many hours of work a student is doing to pay for tuition or a re-focus on the importance of mental health (including rest and sanity), the academic life of a college student, the central reason for attending college, is shrinking.
While we may revel in the free time today’s college structure gives us, the impact is damaging our later search for a career.
According to a survey released in January 2015 from the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AACU), on topic areas such as oral communication, written communication and critical thinking, there is a gap between how prepared we think we are and the perspective of employers.
In all the aforementioned categories, students are more than twice as likely as employers to think that they are being well-prepared. While over 60 percent of students felt that they or recent college graduates were prepared in oral communication, written communication and critical thinking, just under 30 percent of employers felt the same.
I’ve written quite a bit about the rising cost of higher education. The results are a consumer-driven education that cares little for the broadening of the mind and more for climbing walls, flexible schedules and easy A’s.
