<p>^^^so college now vets the minimum level of academic proficiency that used to be done by high school, and presumably postgraduate degrees represent a level of achievement that 4 years of college use to. So how did this happen and how to correct it? One could point fingers locally to blame matters on certain contributing factors which may be politically loaded, but this seems to be the trend across a broad geographic spectrum. So what happened to public education in the last 20-30 years? Eliminating competitive spirit between students? Teaching to to maximize scores on standardized tests? Grade inflation? Less emphasis on homework and more on “self esteem” and extra-curriculars? What has changed?</p>