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<p>Well, nobody is saying that literally everybody would fail, but rather that a large proportion would. </p>
<p>But, again, the real question is, even within the same school, why do certain majors - notably the technical ones - tend to fail out a much larger proportion of students than do others? For example, at probably any school, a larger proportion of engineering/sci students fail out than will humanities students at that same school? It seems highly unlikely that the reason is that engineering/science students just happen to be dumber and lazier than the humanities students - if anything, the opposite is true (which is especially clear at universities that run different admissions regimes for engineering students vs. liberal arts students, as the former group tends to have higher average qualifications.) </p>
<p>Granted, the reason could be that engineering/sci professors do a poorer job of teaching than do humanities professors, but then that naturally begs the question of why engineering/sci professors are such poor teachers, and why universities continue to employ such poor teachers as eng/sci professors. If that truly is the case, then one possible solution would be to have the eng/sci professors learn better teaching skills from the humanities professors. </p>
<p>But that hardly seems to be the only answer. The most important reason why engineering/sci students are likelier to fail than are humanities students is cultural: the engineering/sci educational community believes in harsher and more painful grading and workloads, whereas the humanities don’t. The question then becomes why can’t/won’t the humanities do the same.</p>
<p>Consider the incisive comments of Stuart Rojstazser:</p>
<p>*Duke’s undergraduate engineering school has a separate admissions office. Every year it has to oversubscribe its admissions because many students will leave the engineering school and transfer into arts and sciences after a year, typically majoring in the social sciences. When you ask students why they make this move, they often say it’s because of the workload and grading.</p>
<p>There is also significant attrition across college campuses when it comes to potential biology majors, typically those who initially wanted to go into medical fields. Again, the driver for this attrition is workload and grading.</p>
<p>There are those who argue that this attrition is a good thing, and I would agree to some extent. We don’t want mediocrity in the design of our bridges and machines, or in a hospital operating room. But some of this attrition is undoubtedly unnecessary.</p>
<p>I don’t want to dwell on Duke, but many of those who move out of engineering have the talent to excel. In conversations with them, I have heard a common story about seeing people in dorms partying away and wondering, “Why not me?”</p>
<p>That’s what I mean by unnecessary (and harmful) attrition. I don’t believe that the sciences and engineering should demand less of their students. Rather, the social sciences and humanities need to demand more.*</p>
<p>[Grade</a> Inflation: Your Questions Answered - NYTimes.com](<a href=“Grade Inflation: Your Questions Answered - The New York Times”>Grade Inflation: Your Questions Answered - The New York Times)</p>