This book by Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa (and several coauthors of various chapters) was not much fun to read. The book is written in a “scholarly” style complete with numerous acronyms that probably would appeal to sociology majors, but not to me. It also uses interesting words such as “psychometricians. “However, the information in the book is disturbing. It does not paint a bright picture of what college students are getting for their tens of thousands in student loan debt. I will admit I did not do anything more than skim the final more than a hundred pages containing the “Methodological Appendix,” Notes, Bibliography, and Index.

The book begins with a comment from a former Harvard president saying, “Colleges and universities, for all the benefits they bring, accomplish far less for their students than they should.” That statement isn’t too alarming, but the words to follow are. He says that students graduate from college “…without being able to write well enough to satisfy their employers…reason clearly or perform competently in analyzing complex, non-technical problems.” That sounds bad enough, but the information presented in the book indicates the concerns are understated. Many students are portrayed as attending college with no intention of learning. They focus on enjoying the college experience to the maximum. They borrow large sums of money to be there and search for the classes that have no educational demands to maintain enough of a grade point average to remain in school, study very little, have fun, and eventually graduate. A significant portion of the borrowed money is spent on entertainment, socializing, and travel. Graduates enter the work force (if they are fortunate enough to find a job) with a large debt burden and little ability to succeed.

One basis of the problems with college education comes from the students and enablement from the colleges. A large number of the students are described as “drifting dreamers” who have “…high ambitions but no clear life plans…” They have no understanding about their chosen professions, the educational requirements of the professions, or even if there is even a market demand for the profession they chose. The book title derives from the belief of the authors that many students are “…largely academically adrift.” One student is quoted as saying, “I hate classes with a lot of reading that is tested on.” The student admits to doing “leisure pursuits” instead of doing reading assignments. Colleges have enabled students to stay in college and pay the rapidly inflating tuitions by providing classes that have few academic demands. The student acknowledges that he will be able to graduate with a 3.5 GPA “…but it doesn’t really matter if I don’t remember anything…It’s one thing to get the grade in a class and it’s another to actually take something from it, you know.”

It is disturbing to read that the quality of education has dropped markedly while costs have increased at twice the rate of inflation. Professors are increasingly concentrating on research and publication instead of teaching and the classes are often taught by graduate assistants. The students are encouraged to rate classes highly that have replaced rigorous education with entertaining activities. The average time spent by faculty in preparing and delivering instruction and meeting with students is eleven hours per week. Professors who go against this approach and spend more of their time teaching are not “significantly rewarded.” The net result is that a Secretary of Education Commission wrote that “…the quality of student learning at U.S. colleges and universities is inadequate, and in some cases, declining.”

The heart of the book comes from the testing of 2,322 students enrolled across a range of campuses. They were tested before college, after two years, and after graduation for critical thinking, analytical reasoning, problem solving and writing by something called the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA). The CLA is described as to test the ability to give the students descriptions of real life problems and test their ability to both solve the problems and clearly communicate their reasoning and approaches. The test is lauded by some experts and dismissed as flawed by others. I will editorialize that educators are almost certain to dismiss the results of the tests as flawed, because the results present a dismal picture of the quality of college education. One professor was quoted as saying the public is satisfied with what higher education is doing. “This is a market system, and the customers are buying.” The “customers” should read this book and decide whether they are getting the value they deserve in return for the tens of thousands of dollars and four years of investment.

The book identifies that the problems begin with inadequate education in high schools. Forty-six percent of students in Chicago agreed with the statement, “Even if I do not work hard in high school, I can still make my future plans come true.” Many students with an average grade of C or less in high school are being admitted into four-year colleges. Perhaps that is why such large numbers of students coming to college are required to take several remedial classes. The CLA finds that many college students continue to underperform. The book asks the question, “How much are students actually learning in contemporary education? The answer for many undergraduates, we have concluded, is not much.” The CLA finds “…no statistically significant gains in critical thinking, complex reasoning, and writing skill for at least 45 percent of the students in our study.” About the same number of students reported that they had not taken classes that required extensive reading or writing. Forty-eight percent of them were enrolled in humanities and social sciences, which are the fields of study that have been found to offer students higher grades for little effort.

There is a disturbing assessment that our current higher education system is a “…complicated sieve.” Its purpose is to sift “…the able from the dull.” However, the system is willing to accept tuition from all.

There is a posting on the blog link of this web site that gives some opinions about what students might want to consider in their search for higher education options.