How interesting it is that when scholastic indicators (in the form of college grades) go up, it’s taken as an indication that we’re all becoming stupider. And when they go down (in the form of SAT scores)…we conclude the same thing.
It’s actually worse (or better) than the article suggests, when you consider how much more of the population (per capita) goes to college now than in 1940. If you’re of the “grades as an absolute” persuasion, you’d expect grade *deflation,* as we’ve seen with SAT scores (and which has happened solely for that reason, not because Americans are getting dumber as certain Conservatives have suggested…which shows if nothing else, that they majored in Calumniation instead of Statistics).
Even if grading on a curve, the median, of course, ought not to’ve changed. At least not if the average performance actually stayed the same.
More interesting (to me, anyway) is that that the net inflation over 70 years is just about 20% overall, but while it’s 17.5% for public institutions, it’s a whopping 27% (!) among private schools.
This in turn suggests that since the main reason for the existence of private colleges is provide a mantle of superiority for the children of the privileged classes, that their grade inflation as a function of actual student accomplishment (prime example, our former president) is far higher.
But since the graph didn’t track grade performance on a per capita basis, we may never know. And of course, since the curricula are so different now than 70 years ago, it’s all pretty much meaningless anyway.
My personal theory is that the introduction of women and minorities to the cathedrals of the rich simply means that college students are now 17% smarter (if not more so ) overall than they were in 1940, and that the change in grades is not evidence of inflation at all. A rising tide, after all, lifts all boats.
The actual study report– as opposed to the media interpretation at top– is available here. You’ll notice its interpretations are far different than the version previous. Or my own.
The only thing that’s actually getting stupider is the media-consuming public. (However it’s clear I’m not qualified to comment, since I’m just a hick from Toad Suck, Arkansas and I got Cs and Ds in math all through high school and skipped to subject entirely in college.)
Tags: stupid
