“Graduation Rates are Rising, but is that because Standards are Slipping?”- by Katherine Mangan, from the Chronicle of Higher Education: https://www.chronicle.com/article/Graduation-Rates-Are-Rising/246480?cid=db
When we compare grades in the United State universities to those in other countries, it’s clear that grades in the US are inflated. I had a sneaking suspicion of this earlier in my undergraduate days. The pressure on maintaining grades seemed to have significantly dropped after parting ways with my high school in Silicon Valley. It took a couple of semesters, but eventually I didn’t care what anyone else’s grades were, and I let the amount I cared about a class guide how much effort I put forward. Even then, I didn’t care about the grade too much (I wasn’t thinking that far ahead about grad school and I didn’t have to, unlike those looking to attend Med school).
The classes I took while studying abroad in Ireland were led by Irish professors. They were small classes of the American students in the summer program, a mix of people studying the humanities and sciences. A mix of people who knew how to write a history paper and those who had less practice.
When I received a B on my mid term paper, I looked through the comments and nodded to myself. I deserved my marks. All my paper had needed was a read-through, an extra hour or two to tighten up the argument. I had not yet perfected my paper-writing routine.
But my classmates were not in agreement with their grades, varying as they were. The pre-med students feared for their high GPAs and there was an uproar among a class of about eight students. I think the Irish professor was a bit taken aback – especially because someone on the NYU side of things had a conversation with him to explain what was happening. The following week, he informed us that he would be adjusting the weight of our grades.
“Keep in mind, if any Irish student received a B- on a midterm paper, they would be very happy about that. That’s good here,” he informed us in so many words or so. I think he may have even directly pointed out how weighted our grades are in the US in comparison. And he’s not wrong, making this anecdote a perfect example of what the Chronicle’s article is explaining.
The sticker price for that NYU summer program in Ireland was approximately $11,000. This included six weeks of housing (a room in the Trinity College dorms – the nicest accommodations I ever had through NYU), fees for small weekend and day trips, health insurance, and the tuition cost for a total of 8 credits, or two courses. The program coordinators were great people, the professors were all great, too, to be credited to both NYU and Trinity College. These features are quite typical of such study abroad programs.
I find it surprising that the authors of the paper indicated in the Chronicle don’t look to the price of a higher education degree, or that the article of the CHE article decided not to mention that component (I haven’t read the report, so I’m not sure who missed the beat there). The sticker price of an NYU degree in general is high, as it is for any private university. And the cost of state colleges have increased since the 1990’s as well, the duration of time that this study regarding graduation rates and standards to graduate took place.
When you raise the price of education, when you take it out of government hands to fund, it becomes a product, and the student becomes the customer. Often times the parents are also customers, which creates this really weird dynamic where the students aren’t treated like the adults that they should be because suddenly a million new liabilities come into play.
Here’s what I imagine happened as prices increase: the demand increases to get out of the institution as fast as possible, and you want more for what you’re paying. You had better get something good out of that degree, because yes, you are working more hours than you are studying to pay for the goddamn thing that is supposed to help with your mobility. Gary Roth’s book The Educated Underclass: Students and the False Promise of Social Mobility, will be published on Saturday, and I’m interested to read it for this very reason – are degrees actually delivering social mobility?
In the article I wrote last week, I referenced an article published on the New York Federal Reserve’s blog indicating from their research that college is still worth the investment, even though the rate of return has decreased. Maybe these degrees do pay off in the long run, at least for some people. Literally pay in financial return, at least. But that’s hard to believe unless you are delivered quality and measurable results while you are actually fronting the money. Even college students understand the value of assessment to some extent – we all are taught to value what the numbers show, and we can also measure this value based on the interactions we have while at the institution.
So the pressure is on to deliver those high GPAs in addition to passing out more diplomas. You can argue that it’s all pressure from “the government,” because if more money were allocated to universities and degrees and the right policies were put in place, it wouldn’t cost as much to get a degree and that weird “student as the customer” relationship might disappear – somewhat, and over time. It would have to because more people would get degrees. If you hire a graduate you might pay more attention to that GPA. But employers are looking for skills, and even if the degrees become more affordable, employers would still need to see the right things on a resume to offer someone an interview.
All I’m really trying to say here is that we need to remember that the more expensive product, the higher expectations of the customer. And the same applies to higher education. But when we really think about how higher ed prepares students for the working world… at what point will the employers become the customers?