I’m not sure how it happened, but I ended up having two Washington Post articles up on my screen at the same time: “Is college too easy? As study time falls, debate rises.” and “I went to some of D.C.’s better schools. I was still unprepared for college.“ One article reports college is too easy, while the other is a student basically showing how college was very challenging because he was so unprepared despite going to a “good” high school. So which is it? So now the Goldilocks question: Is college too easy, too hard, or just right?
The article stating college is too easy cites the study on how the number of hours students study is on the decline (find data here) while the average grade is increasing (I’ve mentioned this before). They even quote some students saying their high schools were more challenging. In the other article a student goes step by step through his education and explains how it ended up that he was out of his league on the first day of college. It is actually a really nice explanation of how a student can evolve and be successful.
I’m also not sure what “too hard” or “too easy” means. Should college be a struggle at all? The Times recently had an article titled, “Why Flounding Is Good“. When we struggle we learn things more deeply and retain them longer. I feel like when I struggle I appreciate what I learn more. So maybe this is what “tough” really means. How much should the students struggle?
So maybe a better question than asking how tough college is right now would be asking how tough college should be. Almost every mission statement for college undergrads includes thinking critically, which I would say is by its nature very hard. We want students to bring together information from different sources and synthesis ideas to answer problems. We want them to form new ideas. Now add on top if these all the skills, knowledge, and concepts necessary for a discipline. Sounds challenging for everyone. That seems like a lot for the students to develop in a few years. From a faculty standpoint it is challenging generating a curriculum that would support each student in this development. From the college standpoint, it seems impossible to assess well. Add on the obvious problem that we are teaching diverse groups of students who learn in different ways, at different speeds, with different levels of motivation and interest.
I feel like I’ve moved away from the question of how tough college should be, too just what college should be. I suppose once I feel like colleges have what they should be down and how to provide it better, I’ll come back too if we are being too tough on the students.