Colleges Have Damaged Education

One of the most profound changes in United States culture during my lifetime is the role of higher education.  By and large I think it has not been change for the best.  In many ways colleges and universities have damaged education and had a number of deleterious impacts on society.  

In 1950 29.7% of high school graduates went on to college.  By the 1960s, that percentage rose to 40-45%, with college enrollment skewed heavily toward males.  Today nearly two-thirds of high school graduates enroll in college.  45% of those who enroll drop out, although some resume college at a later time.  That is a dismal record.

58% of college students were male in 1970.  56% of college students are female today.  That is good news, but perhaps the only good news in the story.  Greater opportunity for women has been accompanied by boys being increasingly let down by primary and secondary education.   The comparative success of young women has extracted its own, different, toll.

I don’t write primarily to parse these surprising - perhaps shocking - statistics.  I’m equally or more concerned by the educational and social practices that have been driven by colleges and universities.

Education in the U.S. is a top-down enterprise.  Colleges establish admission criteria, high schools develop college preparatory curricula to meet the college criteria, middle schools develop course sequences to prepare for the high school curricula that meet the college criteria, and primary and early childhood programs ratchet up expectations in service of the ultimate goal.  None of this is mindful of what is in children’s best interests.

Years ago at an admission event for parents of applicant 6th graders, a father reported his nightly routine with his 5th grade daughter.  In the middle of a typically stressful night of too much homework his daughter asked a question.  He found himself reacting with anger and frustration.  “We don’t have time for any goddamn questions!”

While there are race and class differences, public and private differences, and gender differences, the dynamics are the same.  Kids in a Harlem charter school chant aspirational slogans while marching silently and compliantly past Ivy League banners.  Kids in private Manhattan pre-schools wear Yale sweatshirts and attend test prep courses to prepare for admission to the most prestigious kindergarten.

The educational environments created to serve this monster poorly serve boys and girls.  As   thoroughly explicated in books like Peg Tyre’s The Trouble with Boys, expectations in too many schools are sharply contradictory to boys’ natural development and temperament.  Girls are more able to comply with these expectations - in fact may appear to thrive - but they are also damaged, as elucidated in Denise Pope’s book, “Doing School”How We Are Creating a Generation of Stressed Out, Materialistic and Miseducated Students.”

The toxicity is further exacerbated by the highly profitable collusion with the College Board and ACT, both of whom generate multi-millions in revenue from standardized tests (SAT and ACT) and Advanced Placement (AP) courses and exams.  The test scores and AP courses are the currency of the realm in college admissions and also drive bad educational practices.  As with the 5th grade girl, the stress of the chase for the brass ring leaves millions of high school kids no “time for any goddamn questions.”  Education without questions is, well, not really education.

I often railed against these things when head of the Calhoun School.  I cited the considerable evidence of the damage the process does.  A 2019 New York Times piece reported that 64% of college students reported high levels of anxiety.  64%!!!!

Many faculty members at highly selective colleges report that their high-flying students are not only stressed and depressed, but alarmingly incurious.  After all, they’ve been conditioned to answer questions, not ask them.  They sit with notebook in hand, diligently recording the professors’ points of view so as to accurately reiterate them on the next exam or writing assignment.

One lovely student, to whom I had railed in high school, grabbed the brass ring of Princeton admission despite maintaining her mental health and asking plenty of questions.  At her first fall break, she stopped by my office.  

(I paraphrase) “Steve!  You were so right! At the start of the semester, in a small freshman class, the professor asked us to write an essay - no grade - to get an idea of our interests and writing ability.  A student asked, ‘What should we write about?’  ‘Whatever you wish to write about,’ he replied.  ‘But give us an idea of what you want,’ chirped another student.  ‘I don’t care,’ he replied with mild irritation.  ‘Write about whatever interests you.’  ‘But, but . . . what are we supposed to be interested in?’”

Colleges have done this to themselves.  They demand high scores and impeccable GPAs of applicants, along with as many AP courses as a student can cram into their over-programmed lives.  Even when they should know better, they shove the entry bar higher and higher so that fewer and fewer applicants can hurdle it.  They then tout their rejection rate as evidence of their quality so that US News and World Report will rank them higher so that they can attract even more applicants and send 95% of them a soul-crushing rejection letter.

Higher education has also threatened future economic stability of a generation by saddling young women and men with life-long debt they incurred for the promise of upward mobility that never came.   

Although the most vicious representations of this madness are among the privileged, the effects have trickled down through education everywhere.  

Early childhood experts, cognitive psychologists and neurobiologists all know that learning should be based in play, discovery, experimentation and expression.  They all know that questions are far more important than just learning answers.  They all know that current educational practices virtually extinguish natural curiosity by eighth grade.

Nonetheless, students are expected to grind their way through an anxiety-ridden process that leaves little time for the things that would most benefit them.  

And it is all driven from the top.  If colleges were to reward curiosity, imagination, creativity, humor, originality and passion - think about how education could change.