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Today’s College Freshmen Are… - Dan '82 - 05-03-2017
https://www.the-american-interest.com/2017/05/03/todays-college-freshmen-are/
Quote:The Chronicle of Higher Education has a new web tool for exploring trends in the attitudes and opinions of incoming American college freshmen as measured by UCLA’s nationwide freshman survey. During the survey’s lifetime, the demographics of higher education have changed significantly—a larger share of high school graduates (especially women) attend college today than in 1972. So it’s impossible to say for sure which changes are the result of the UCLA survey’s changing sample composition, and which are the result of broader cultural shifts among young people. Nonetheless, few of the changes say particularly encouraging things about the future of America’s middle and upper classes. Here are some of the results we found interesting...
https://www.the-american-interest.com/2017/05/03/todays-college-freshmen-are/
RE: Today’s College Freshmen Are… - Odin - 05-04-2017
(05-03-2017, 10:44 PM)Dan Wrote: https://www.the-american-interest.com/2017/05/03/todays-college-freshmen-are/
Quote:The Chronicle of Higher Education has a new web tool for exploring trends in the attitudes and opinions of incoming American college freshmen as measured by UCLA’s nationwide freshman survey. During the survey’s lifetime, the demographics of higher education have changed significantly—a larger share of high school graduates (especially women) attend college today than in 1972. So it’s impossible to say for sure which changes are the result of the UCLA survey’s changing sample composition, and which are the result of broader cultural shifts among young people. Nonetheless, few of the changes say particularly encouraging things about the future of America’s middle and upper classes. Here are some of the results we found interesting...
https://www.the-american-interest.com/2017/05/03/todays-college-freshmen-are/
That bulge in business majors in the late 2T and early 3T says a lot.
RE: Today’s College Freshmen Are… - pbrower2a - 05-04-2017
They are more likely to see profit-and-loss business an objective and not a fall-back. The fast-food places seeking manager trainees used to show little desire for college degrees. A college degree typically requires above-average raw intelligence, something of little value in the rigidly-run eateries in which thinking outside the box is likely to get one in trouble.
In a business management class that I took I saw an exercise that the instructor offered that showed a graph with "business achievement" as the y-axis and we were to guess (1) what the achievement was, and (2) what the x-axis was. It rose abruptly to a certain point and then tailed off.
My guess for the x-axis was "daily alcohol consumption"; social drinking might be part of the job, but drinking too much erodes performance.
"Good guess -- but wrong!" said the instructor.
It turns out that the 'business achievement' was in being a manager of a fast-food restaurant with rigid rules and little room for autonomy. The peak on the x-axis was "90" as achievement on a standardized test, and achievement by company standards dropped off significantly. Now what is the problem for people of above-average intelligence getting into the formal management-training program in such a place? Numbers like "80" and "90" up to about "140" referred to IQ. "90" is dull-normal, good for competent performance in jobs that require rigid adherence to set rules, ability to understand simple instructions, and to fill out basic paperwork. People with IQs appreciably below 90 generally weren't up to the job. People with IQs well above 90 could learn the job fast but tire of it fast; they might use their 'management' training as a stepping-stone to management in something else. The company wants people likely to stick around at least five years, and brilliant people typically leave for something else after such a time -- or want to involve themselves in some activity that might interfere in covering for an absent employee. It might be acceptable to hire a college student to work in such a place as a regular employee who leaves as soon as he gets the job as a teacher, accountant, or engineer -- but you don't want a unit manager doing so. The company has little investment in an employee who does the drudge work of a regular employee, and seemingly anyone not severely untrainable can do the work.
Colleges on the whole are dipping lower in raw academic ability (which means more drop-outs, especially if they considered the refined discussion of literature less attractive than being a fast-food manager) but also in income (practically neutral, as this often attracts talented people once shut out of college). A state university with unselective policies in admissions might be taking in people who might drop out after some obvious failures in freshman courses that weed out incompetent or lazy students.
The standardized test was a plain IQ test.
RE: Today’s College Freshmen Are… - pbrower2a - 05-04-2017
You can imagine how I would fare in such an environment.