Trouble in Higher Ed.

Photo: John Walker

The Chronicle of Higher Education is running the second installment of an interesting two-part essay on the declining expectations and level of learning taking place among college undergrads. The author, Thomas H. Benton, cites several factors at fault: students doing less long-form writing and reading, grade inflation, Boomer professors presiding over the largest age-gap ever in academia. These factors all tie into Academically Adrift, a new book by two sociology professors, Richard Arum of NYU and Josipa Roksa of Virginia. It’s a polemic against higher education’s incentive systems and the cushy environment that is the American university these days, where the goal seems to be how best to accommodate students, rather than challenge them.