<p>ucbalumnus-Exactly. The responsibility is the student’s. When they fail to graduate, it is because of the choices they have made.</p>
<p>Pizzagirl- The point is that a large majority of students fail to take full advantage of their college opportunities. Many of the posters in this thread have been citing examples of particular students who are able to take full advantage successfully. My point in posting the graduation rates is to show that most students are not able to do it all. What’s more, I would say that, of the roughly 50% who do graduate, half of then do so with a gpa under 3.0. (a guess) So, maybe 25% of freshmen nationwide in 4-year schools are able to at least take good advantage of their academic opportunities. Of THAT 25%, I have no idea what the percentage is who take much advantage of cultural opportunities, too, but it is probably substantially less than 25%. Many of the individual examples mentioned in this thread are atypical. Students should AT LEAST take advantage of their academic opportunities. But, they don’t.</p>
<p>Parents should be alarmed by how poorly prepared their children are for college!! What a waste of human and financial resources.</p>
<p>An earlier poster questioned whether I was referring to community colleges. I was not.</p>
<p>I just looked it up…
The average grad rate at 4-year schools is 59% and the average gpa is 3.1 (up from 2.5 in the 1950s due to grade inflation). That is still a lot of failure and mediocrity.</p>
<p>College students are actually getting worse. Very poor study habits and classroom decorum.</p>
<p>I’m not sure what the solution is but I suspect you would have to go back to early childhood and change the way we raise children from a young age. Our culture doesn’t help…it is making people dumber and dumber.</p>
<p>I don’t think the top college students are getting worse (or that people are getting dumber…although my 27-year-old son would agree with you, @collegehelp). In fact, I think the top quartile are probably better prepared than ever before, especially in math and science. </p>
<p>But the college-student population is changing and becoming more “inclusive” as more teens—even some with little interest or aptitude for higher education—are pursuing post-secondary education. (42% of 18-24 year olds were enrolled in college in 2011 vs. 35.5% in 2000. And that compared to a relatively constant rate of 25-27% during the 70s and early 80s.) Measures of central tendency reflect that changing population. So I take a lot of those with a grain of salt.</p>
<p>I also don’t think culture has changed radically in the past 10-20 years, but technology has. It is easier than ever to find information, but because information is so readily available, I’ve found that kids are better at data gathering and less proficient at synthesis, analysis, and application. And those are skills that are likely to be developed and honed outside the classroom in independent EC activities.</p>
<p>Sigh. I think you’re hopelessly out of touch with the real world to suggest that it’s the taking-place-in-extracurriculars and attending-cultural-events-on-campus that is causing these students not to graduate. </p>
<p>MONEY Is a large factor why people drop out – and yes, SOME kids may also be wasting their time playing video games or drinking with their friends and thus fail. </p>
<p>But it has nothing to do with positive extracurriculars such as editing the school newspaper or listening to the Madeleine Albright lecture – which is why we don’t understand why you think those things are a “waste of time when time could be better spent studying” or why a normal, well-rounded person who takes academics seriously shouldn’t also find time on his calendar to take advantage of these kinds of activities which are free or low-cost and which for most people add immeasurably to the enjoyment of life.<br>
The kids who are on the verge of flunking out aren’t going to Madeleine Albright lectures and Yo Yo Ma concerts when they should be studying. They are doing things of NO value when they should be studying.</p>
<p>“The average grad rate at 4-year schools is 59% and the average gpa is 3.1 (up from 2.5 in the 1950s due to grade inflation). That is still a lot of failure and mediocrity.”</p>
<p>What should the average GPA be? Can everyone be above average, in your estimation? I heard that a full 25% of Harvard students are in the bottom quarter of their class. Should Harvard - a leading institution - do something about it? Maybe they should kick those 25% out, and then no one will be in the bottom quarter of their class. </p>
<p>I think EllieMom puts her finger on a major problem with this conversation, and that’s the fact that there is a broad spectrum of academic ability and preparation in this country. I’ll bet that if you looked at graduation rates as compared to the average SAT scores of incoming students, you’d see a pretty clear correlation (and where there isn’t a correlation, that’s the sign of a school doing either a really good job or a really poor job). Also, are schools like Amherst and Williams “baccalaureate colleges” because they don’t have graduate programs? They have extremely high graduation rates</p>
<p>collegehelp, you started this thread with concerns about if a student was wasting their parent’s money by not taking full advantage of the college experience. Keep in mind that many, many students receive little to no money from their parents, and that there are plenty of college students who started when they were much older than 18. That’s not the demographics of most of CC, let alone of the students whose parents are here on this forum. As for your complaint about young people, it’s a very, very old problem. As someone once grumped: “Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders and love chatter in place of exercise; they no longer rise when elders enter the room; they contradict their parents, chatter before company; gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers.”</p>
<p>Back in the 1950’s there were plenty of Ivy Leaguers who got a “Gentleman’s C” while spending a great deal of time being social. They were biding their time, waiting until it was time to step into a job at Daddy’s firm. Their female counterparts at the various Seven Sisters and other northeastern women’s colleges were looking for an appropriate mate. By their lights, that was taking full advantage of the college experience. </p>
<p>I understand that there is a broader spectrum of students in college now but I am not sure the problem is ability as much as it is self discipline. Texting and surfing the internet in class, failing to attend class, not doing the assigned reading, not turning in assignments, poor writing skills, drinking, drugs, messed up personal lives that distract from studies.</p>
<p>“Genius is 1 % inspiration and 99% perspiration.”</p>
<p>Pizzagirl, I agree that wasting time is a greater problem than overinvolvement in ECs and cultural events. But, I know the latter does happen.</p>
<p>There may also be a shift in college enrollment and graduation such that it is now more related to family SES than actual ability. High achieving (on standardized tests) students from low income families have about the same chance of graduating from college as low achieving students from high income families. Perhaps that indicates a misallocation of college education among students, in that some of the 42% of 18-24 year olds in college may not be the ones who can best make use of college education, while others not going to college at all may have been better students if they had gone to college.</p>
I think it is probably extremely rare for a student to actually have to leave college because his grades suffered too much due to overinvolvement in ECs–students who are overinvolved can–and most likely, usually do–cut back on their involvement if their grades suffer too much. I personally have never been aware of any student who left school for this reason–although I have been aware of a substantial number who had to leave because they didn’t go to class or do their work because of too much drinking, partying, etc.</p>
<p>Swap out “texting and surfing the internet” for “reading the newspaper” and you’ve got something that might well apply to, well, pretty much anyone who’s gone to college. Do you honestly think this is only a modern issue? </p>
<p>By the way, if you’re advising college students to look for a spouse, you can’t then complain about “messed up personal lives that distract from studies” when there’s a breakup. </p>
<p>Just want to point out that some things that appear to be positive extracurriculars are sometimes paying jobs - like editing the school newspaper. S1 is a sports journalism major and has been sports editor of his campus paper for three semesters. It pays better than the 15 hour a week off-campus job he had and is going to look a heck of a lot better on his resume. </p>
<p>“Texting and surfing the internet in class, failing to attend class, not doing the assigned reading, not turning in assignments, poor writing skills, drinking, drugs, messed up personal lives that distract from studies.”</p>
<p>The actual means of texting / surfing the internet is new, but in our day and in our parents’ day, you could daydream or doodle just as effectively. Nothing you’re citing is anything new under the sun. There will always be x% of young people who don’t take their studies seriously, who goof off, etc. There’s nothing to suggest that general number has changed appreciably over time. </p>
<p>I think an argument could be made that surfing the internet is at least slightly more productive than blankly staring into space, which some of us may have done in a few of our college courses.</p>
<p>I’m surprised by the complacency from some of you about the mediocre effort that students put forth. Some of you even seem to excuse it. Where is the concern? It is the parents that have so much at stake (and their children). If you paid for a pound of hamburger at the grocery store but later discovered you only received half a pound, you would be outraged. But, when your child is only learning half of what they could, you say oh well. Like father, like son, I guess (or daughter).</p>
<p>I am not at all concerned about my own kids preparation for college.</p>
<p>I am concerned about kids who are stuck in terrible K-12 schools and graduate barely able to read at an 8th grade level, and cannot calculate a fraction (I worked retail- the number of people who couldn’t figure out that a coat that cost $100 and was 25% off was… is a truly alarming number.)</p>
<p>But the answer is NOT to tell your kids to sit in their rooms and study. Because you’re talking about two completely different populations.</p>
<p>The first time someone can identify a kid who had to drop out of school because he/she spent too much time at the political union or debate club- call me. This is a ludicrous argument.</p>
<p>Collegehelp- my guess is that you don’t actually know too many kids who have dropped out of college. I know lots of them. The primary reason is always money- either it ran out, or they didn’t have any to begin with and so were patching their tuition together with Pells plus loans plus a $500 loan from grandma which she managed to cobble together. The second reason is usually lack of focus- the parents wanted the kid in college- the kid had no interest in being there. So each semester started ok (how bad can a class be on day 1?) until the workload kicked in, and then the student starts to circle the drain. Drop one class- sure. Drop two classes- ok. Drop three and you get an academic warning and before you know it, the kid has been in college for four semesters with only two credits. And then asked to leave. The third reason is usually addiction of some kind.</p>
<p>I think you’d have to go pretty far down the list to find a kid who actually dropped out because EC’s proved to be too time consuming.</p>
<p>Doesn’t make me complacent- makes me a realist.</p>
<p>"I’m surprised by the complacency from some of you about the mediocre effort that students put forth. Some of you even seem to excuse it. Where is the concern? "</p>
<p>It’s not for me to “excuse” or “not excuse” the action of kids who aren’t my own, collegehelp. What will my “outrage” at their behavior do? Gee, some middle age mom on a computer somewhere is upset. Boy, that’ll show them.</p>
<p>I’m satisfied that my kids are studying well, taking studies seriously AND enjoying activities. Indeed, I joined my son at a theater event on campus last night - an annual tradition at our campus with many fond memories, dating back 30 years when my H and I were dating and would go. </p>
<p>“I think it is probably extremely rare for a student to actually have to leave college because his grades suffered too much due to overinvolvement in ECs”</p>
<p>I have known this to happen, though I agree that it’s very rare. I’d say this is the college equivalent of a first-world problem. A couple of my fellow singers were forced to take time off from school, and then were readmitted on the condition that they not sing for the following semester or year! But it was always a combination of factors at play, not just simple overcommitment; the people who couldn’t handle all of their commitments were not necessarily those with the heaviest commitments.</p>