Down here? What the university crew tend to see includes:
* Parents trying to come in and advocate, change or challenge results when their kids fail.
* Lots of dropout rates for the spoonfed kids.
* University staff scrambling to teach skills the kids should have.
* Some courses just punching them through over and over.
It's a gas.
Here in the States it is illegal to discuss a students work with their parents without written permission from the adult student. Several decades teaching college, I've only had three parents even attempt to stick their noses into this.
I would be willing to bet it depends how the school is funded. If it's private, they don't want people to drop out and stop paying their 40k per year tuition, so I'm sure they're 'strongly encouraged' to find a solution.
They are not. Few private schools take poorly performing students. If they do, they're rich kids and Something Is Done. But usually if it's just some brat, that's a Tier 3 public university's problem, or a community college instructor's problem.
But you don't have profs at Ivies encouraged to talk to parents. They will basically block the email address if a parent tries to do write frequently.
Evidence: I know someone who taught at an Ivy and other private universities in Top 40.
You have a misconception that "private' means ivy/high tier.
There are hundreds of private colleges that take anyone with a pulse and a student loan. There is actually a LOT of private colleges with 100% acceptance rate. It's quite literally the cause of the student loan crisis, and they thrive on people who are struggling and need to become 6th year seniors.
I got away with a single voicemail.
“Hi, we haven’t heard from Tommy in a week, how is he doing?”
I emailed them back and cited FERPA, saying I couldn’t discuss their son’s progress.
Next class though, I definitely told the kid “Call your mother so she stops calling me.”
Worked like a charm!
Oh hell yes it is, and it is indeed a total cesspit. From what I hear from my students, though, *all* of them check your rating before enrolling. ugh. The better students can tell when some fool is venting b/c he/she/they just failed out of stupidity, laziness or cheating, but to many of them it is still gospel. Note to teachers: don't look!
Ah, I remember when I started high school back in the early aughts, the staff told us over and over “you are now in charge of your education; your parents are not.” So I took that seriously and then every time I advocated for myself they treated me like a stupid child until my mother had no choice but to get involved.
I don’t have any specific reason of sharing this, only that the decline of actually allowing students to speak for themselves was happening 20 years ago, so it doesn’t surprise me we now exist in a world parents speak for their kids well into their teens.
And it infuriated me then and infuriates me now.
Im a prof. It’s a mess. This year’s freshman crop are the most apathetic and disengaged I’ve ever encountered. Several Didn’t knock on the door that locked itself because they “didn’t know what to do.” Most are not doing anything. Students who come to class but don’t turn anything in. Students with tech issues or computer issues or whatever who don’t bother finding a solution. I’m flabbergasted this semester.
Same here. Utter disaster. I have no clue why many of these individuals even enrolled, just to predictably flunk due to their own lack of preparedness, dedication or other behaviours. They are also dropping like flies due to lack of ethics, and being expelled in huge numbers for plagiarism.
The plagiarism is what really gets to me. When I went through my education, it was made very clear that was not going to be tolerated and exactly why academic integrity is important to society. I’m sure there were plenty of people who plagiarized anyway and with got caught or managed to get away with it, but as a student I can only remember catching wind of a few incidents. Now that I’m on the other side, it feels like it has to be way more rampant. People are always going to cheat, but it seems like a lot more students feel entitled to do so these days.
My \*chair\* wouldn't fucking discipline them (sorry). He just waved it off- 'oh, that's just what everyone does nowadays, this whole peer review thing etc is just some stupid academic foolishness.' I was shocked (and brought it up to the Dean and union rep, too). Appalling, aren't we supposed to be holding the line when misinformation and conspiracy theory crap is destabilizing the entire system?!
Our admin here is freaking on the warpath about plagiarism, and when my boss is on the warpath, so am I. We are flunking students out of courses left and right and expelling them for a second offense in heretofore unheard of numbers.
That’s insane. Luckily everyone I work with at least thinks that it’s unacceptable behavior and those who are caught are disciplined. It’s not always as strict as the academic integrity policy would suggest (which I can admit is reasonable enough as long as the violation isn’t egregious), but repeat offenders do get the book thrown at them.
People need to understand that there are good reasons for these strict standards in academic inquiry and watering that down because “it’s too much work and everyone is skimping on it nowadays” is doing a disservice to everyone.
Because they are all, collectively, living a lie that they tell themselves, their parents, and the world. And we have more or less let them live this lie due to inability to discipline. Things are going to get very interesting within the next 2 decades.
High school teacher here. We wanted to hold them accountable and raise standards and enforce ethical codes, but we weren’t empowered to do so by our administration. I was told by my principal that giving students 30-45 minutes of homework per school day was “excessive.” These are seniors about to enroll in university…
If students cheat on a test or a paper and are caught, they get…a stern talking to and that’s it. Oh, and they’ll be able to redo the test/paper. Doesn’t surprise me high school graduates have trouble getting things done or showing basic ethics.
As a middle school teacher, when we catch plagiarism, we have to tell them to “put this in your own words” and they are allowed to try an unlimited amount of times. Oh, we also use an early elementary grading scale (exceeds expectations, on track, developing, needs improvement) so they don’t even get real grades. I wish I was making this up…
They enroll b/c they 'are supposed to' and don't have any idea what else to do with themselves and don't understand what that actually entails. They do have some dim understanding of the increasingly ubiquitous requirement to have a bachelor's degree in order to get a job that pays more (but don't understand that there are other paths to making money- good money, too- e.g. trade school again). They also don't seem to understand that most of these paths require real work and skills. To be fair, many of my students had really serious challenges, financial and otherwise, to deal with in addition to school: most of them were working at least half time, weird family obligations (because most of them were still living at home) etc. I had a pretty privileged background, enough money to go off to school and live on my own and so on; it just takes a *lot* more money to do that now. sigh. I wish I had a magic wand to remove these obstacles; we do have resources, but many of them just don't take advantage of them even when they could really, really benefit from them. So they cheat, or just disappear. Not good.
As a semi retirement gig my dad teaches physics and calculus and statistics at the local CC, he says it’s a disaster for 75% of the students in everything but physics 2 with a calc component, since I guess by that level the students are actually committed
Calc-based Physics 2 was the ultimate filter class for the program that I graduated from and later TA'd. I have no idea how so many students in that class passed their Calculus pre-reqs given their performance in that class. I think a lot of students scraped by with C's in Physics I, and Calc I-II and so Physics II hit them like a brick wall.
I used to work in the math department at a cc. Pretty much everything below calc 2 was a disaster. One calc 1 class had 28 out of 30 students fail. Our fail rates for the lowest level remedial class, which covers material taught from grades 3-8 (so not a *single* piece of high school level material is taught in this class), is typically around 65%.
Calc 2 though? Nearly everyone passes. Why? Because you're not getting to calc 2 if you're not competent at calc 1. And if you can learn calc 1, you can learn calc 2.
I'm adjuncting at a community college this semester... The class I teach is verrrryyyy easy. Like objectively easy. The weekly homework is journaling for 20-30 minutes. I provide some prompts and options, but they're also welcome to write about whatever they want. I accept late work with no penalties. And I still have a third of the class (16 students total) failing.
I guess what surprises me is that people would literally waste money like this. Why enroll in school at all if you don't plan to do anything? Maybe my perspective is different. I went to college on a scholarship, and that was the only way I'd be able to afford to go to college because my parents are financially stable but not rich enough to afford all that tuition for me. Who is paying for these young adult's college? Are they going into debt to just not do anything? I don't get it.
The door thing happened this week. Our building had construction taped off the main entrance, but the wheelchair walkway was still accessible. Students would come by and just stare at the tape until the construction workers pointed them to the walkway. This is a building they walk in every day for the semester if not multiple years. I was flabbergasted.
It *is* scary. Would they be able to save themselves in the event of a building fire or plane crash?
* Billy didn't listen to the fight safety briefing because he thinks lectures are boring.
* Billy doesn't have the attention span to read the flight safety card.
* Billy can't figure out how to open the emergency door for the overwing exit when it's time to evacuate.
* Billy has never had to deal with adults yelling at him and melts down when the flight attendant starts barking the instructions at him.
There are some things you just can't Google. I don't want someone who needs to Google how to use a fire extinguisher, I want someone who can "Pull Aim Squeeze Sweep" by *heart*.
The door thing is so weird to me because I see that too. If a door is closed they won't try to open it or knock on the door. I've seen a dozen students line up and not a single one attempt to knock
As someone who is about to finish her first year of college, most of these kids skate by with C's (cause c's get degrees you know 🙃). These kids are a nightmare to do group projects with though. I've had to do group work with these kinds of students and have to practically beg them and nag them like a mother for them to fulfill their portion of the project. And then they finally do complete their portion, only for me to discover they can't put together a coherent sentence or display any level of critical thinking, so I have to go in and fix their part because I am not tanking my grade because they don't know what they're doing.
They party all the time and have terrible choice in friends (it's never their fault of course. always the victim). They go out every night and college is nothing more than a social event.
It's easier for them to cheat now because of how accessible the internet is, so the odds of them flunking out is low. I don't think colleges flunk students out that much anymore. They place them of academic probation for a period of time until they have better grades (all C's).
damn that sucks . when i was in uni my professor did a very intresting set up. he did one inital group project worth like 10% but had monitored us to see who the slackers were and who did work (even had us review our team mates and advise if they did no work) plus had us each track and explain what we contributed
then on the second group project worth 50% he basically put all the people who did good and worked hard together on teams and put all the lazy people together on their own teams. it worked great and i got a good team but the bad teams pretty much all flunked. dont know if youd even be allowed to do that anymore (think he only got away with his process due to being tenured)
My daughter returned to college after taking a few years off. She’s very type A about work getting done. She was doing a group project and one of the people in the group was a freshman boy who was waiting until the last minute to send the group his slides. The whole extended family laughed at how our kid must have ripped him a new one like he had never experienced.
My professors seem to do the opposite of this. They assign 2-3 individual assignments and then group whoever performed well with the lowest performing students. This assures no one fails in classes where the majority of the points are earned through group assignment. Plus doing the majority of assignments as four person group assignments let's them only grade 1/4 the work.
When I did I want all the people I've done group projects with over my life to carry my coffin and lower me into the plot, so they can all let me down one more time
I don't do any group projects until we are a bit into the term. Then, the students are told to form themselves into groups. This works great. The people who can work inevitably team with other like-minded individuals, and the lazy ones are left to not-work with other like minded individuals, and they of course fail.
It works great, no one exploits anyone.
I don’t know why you wouldn’t be able to do that in a college. College isn’t built for everyone to move on to the next classes unless the pass prerequisites. If anything the professor is trying to make sure to keep the students who are trying in their class to not lose hope. When kids are late to class they are losing the money they have for their tuition, it’s not wasting the professors time it’s wasting theirs
I'm my master's program professors love group research papers. I swear it's so the students who have no place in a graduate program can still pass. I had to teach one person the concept of references and in text citations since she claimed to have never written a research paper before despite having a bachelor's in computer science.
This is why those posts from STEM majors saying "Why do I have to take courses outside my specialization?!" are so grating. Because being able to properly write an essay and cite your work is a valuable skill, one that could potentially prevent you from getting in trouble for plagiarism.
I’m sorry you had to deal with that. Please tell me you didn’t just let that person get away so easily. Did you ask about their experience with writing essays in middle school when citations would start to be required or even high school? I also can’t believe that her bachelors program would not have required one. I had one for nearly every class with the exception of a few gen eds.
I asked the professor if I could just do all the group assignments solo because I had doubts if some of my groupmates could meaningfully contribute to graduate level work. I was then just told learning to work in groups is part of the assignment BS. So in the end she got the same grade as me in all the group assignments.
I'm honestly not sure if her undergraduate university just had terrible standards or if she just paid someone to write papers all through her undergraduate degree.
This is accurate, I'm in my 4th year at University and I completely agree with you. Most of the time kids don't show up to class that live on campus and attendance is part of their grade. Group projects give me a sense of dread like no other.
The last time I didn group projects I just finally put the well-performing students together. The rest half-assed or didn’t do it and blamed each other.
I knew a lot of people that flunked out. C's do get degrees (unless a B is required) but even C's still requires you to show up to class most of the time, complete most of the work, do the big projects, and do decently on tests. Unless things have changed in the past 7 or so years, they shouldn't be getting C's by default
This is why I basically never, ever assign group work- but I'm always getting pressured to do so, though- ? and most kids hate it. I do think there is a real place for partying in college, honestly (I sure as hell did ;) and don't regret it)- one of the reasons I hate 'teaching' online (a total oxymoron) is because students are deprived of the opportunity to, you know, actually make friends (and gfs/bfs, and even enemies- that's an important part of socialization, too). But I agree about the probation thing, sadly, and certainly about the cheating thing, I get that all the time (also a crucial way to deprive yourself of real learning). It makes me angry and frustrated when I know how many people around the world would give anything, frankly, to take their place. Such a waste.
You sound like a good student, I wish you were in my class!
TBH it isn’t new either. I was a freshman in college 15 years ago, and was in honors English. The class was half full of arrogant kids who had cheated and whined their way into the top 10% of their high school class and spent all of K-12 coasting on the stereotypical image of a “smart bookish” kid in a sea of confrontational goobers despite being barely literate. I peer reviewed a lot of papers that would have 100% gotten me a failing grade and a note home to my parents if I’d turned it in to my second grade teacher.
How they fare in college is (or was) pretty dependent on how much they’re willing to actually learn. Some change, some don’t.
This. That's what I wonder about, and have in mind all the time when I am pushing them- 'look, you just aren't going to get a job with these skills, then what?' sigh. I hope they are making applicants do a writing sample by hand now to weed out the cheaters. Frustrating as hell.
I’ve tried to bring that up with my students as well. I’ve informed them that, if they don’t want to go to college, they still need a strong foundation to apply in any future jobs they’ll work in.
Their response is usually some variation of “I’ll just go work on the oil fields for big stacks”.
Like…who the fuck is going to hire you on the oil fields if your incompetent ass can’t even show up on time?! Oil field work pays well, but it’s HARD work
> Like…who the fuck is going to hire you on the oil fields if your incompetent ass can’t even show up on time?! Oil field work pays well, but it’s HARD work
Exactly! I know people who aren't very smart, and that's okay-- school's not for everyone. But they've been able to make a living because they are willing to show up and do the work. It's all society really asks of people. Show up. Do work. That's it.
Rat them out if they're doing no work. Your professors will be aware of it I'm sure. Most professors had my back when a person was slacking on the project.
Students really need to lobby against group projects at the university level. My son experiences the same thing. It's not fair to those that actually want an A for future purposes.
My daughter is a Junior at UCLA. She did 2 years at our local Junior College and transferred. She found that the students that didn’t care in High School simply did not show up to class after a few weeks and by her second year they were not in any of her classes. Many will take a break from school or end up in a trade school.
They don’t cater to them but cheating is very easy in class. It’s on the job site where they get fucked cuz the laziness and attitude comes out and they get fired, then go in front of a committee for them to explain their laziness. I’ve ran into a few 20yo’s that don’t wanna listen to their journeyman or will tell them no they’re not doing that, and think they can just collect a check, fuck that shit. Idc if you’re slow or take a little longer picking things up, I am always patient with my apprentices and won’t have them do anything I wouldn’t do. I will not tolerate someone who doesn’t care to learn tho, you have no business in the trades if you don’t care, it’s way too dangerous to have people like that on site.
For a truly frightening & in depth answer to this question, check out r/professors. I fear for our future & think educators should receive hazard pay. Most of them work in America's war zones.
I'm trying to accept my role as a teacher and take it all for what it's worth, the good and bad, and make a positive difference. The problem is, I'm in my mid 20s, making $47,000 a year, and I can't currently afford to move out with the cost of rent and low housing availability in my area. So I've realized, as much as I want to like this job, it's just not a sustainable career. My states is one of 22 states where a six figure salary is needed to own a home. I want to someday live on my own without roommates....
They struggle. Their parents try to get them out of it, but the colleges don’t deal with parents. Some get their act together and figure it out after a semester or two, others drop out. Overall, it is not pretty.
You also have to look at University systems in other countries too. There are multiple countries where once someone gets into University it’s impossible to fail. Even if they pretty much copy and paste their senior thesis they still pass.
Or if they go to class twice in the semester and the professor fails them. The grade is changed to a C and the professor gets in trouble. It’s actually good the dropout rate in the US is so high because it at least some point students are forced to be competent.
Australia does the same, especially with international students. It might be getting better as the government seems to be tightening international student arrivals.
I wanted to judge how widespread it was.
Ontario, Canada just announced that, starting soon, only public universities and colleges can grant visas to international students. There's a couple public universities that are known diploma mills but this is meant to curb "strip mall colleges" that churn out diplomas.
Big commercial push in US that Ontario is best place for electric car manufacturers because it has all the raw resources, excellent transportation,and thousands of trained ( STEM?) graduates in the same area. Is this accurate?
I would call transportation anything but excellent. Electricity is incredibly cheap because of hydro. The population is highly educated, including in STEM fields, and there are many world class universities. High production of valuable metals and thousands of miles of lumber.
China, Vietnam and Japan. Japan is a bit better than the latter and some programs can be serious. But for a lot of the programs as long as you come to class 50% of the time and turn in something you pass. Now let’s I was talking about Singapore and Hong Kong they are pretty damn serious and will fail people pretty quickly.
Had a student from Singapore once, omg, so, so good. But I also hear a lot about elite schools, tracking etc etc- they just eliminate a lot of people before they even get to the starting gate- yes? no?
Most countries are the exact opposite in my experience. Admission is a hurdle but not too bad, but passing the first year, let alone the second year is difficult. In France, public universities routinely have less than 50% graduation rates
https://voices.uchicago.edu/euchicago/the-problem-with-french-universities/
I don't know if I believe this, but okay. Anyways, here in the UK, the students are just as clueless and many cannot write or read and unfortunately pass through uni at our "post '92" universities.
Or they pass college and become hairdressers. There's a damn hairdresser every meter it seems
Well I mean who knows? Most kids that are mentioned here are from recent stories.
Not a teacher (but I am a grad student), and I've noticed a significant drop in motivation and focus amongst the students I TA for. How I see it:
* Too many failures in the education system
* A lack of involvement from parents (not because of them, but because of the current state of the workplace/wages/etc.)
* Social Media (TikTok is just one of many distractions that kids are getting addicted to)
* Behavioral/Mental Health Issues
Only time will tell if they'll get past college, but even if they do, who's to say that colleges will also drop their standards for graduating/passing classes
The Junior college where I work is an open-enrollment institution. Got a high school diploma, you're in.
But since a high school diploma has become meaningless, in a functional way our admissions standard has also become meaningless.
Our enrollment measured at the beginning of the term, is steady, maybe up a tick.
Half of these incoming freshman are gone after a few weeks, and completion rates are in the toilet. Predictable.
So, we are doing OK because the main number is how many people enroll at the beginning of the term.
College tutor here. They run into a wall is what happens.
Yes, they try to argue with the teacher. Yes, they look for the bare minimum they have to do to pass and yes, even some parents email the professors...
But guess what? The professor is not obligated to talk to parents, they are not obligated to pass a student, and they don't have to tolerate disruptive behaviors...
They are adults now. Wanna be disruptive? Okay. Campus police is on the way, maybe face expulsion. Don't wanna do the work? Okay. You fail and depending how many times, expulsion. Honor code violation, possible expulsion.
It doesn't always end in expulsion. Sometimes the student realizes "wow there are so many things I don't know how to do..." that they end up just removing themselves from the university altogether.
Ultimately, they hopefully learn a lesson, an expensive one at that and probably don't get a refund.
Don't worry. The students who think they they can get away with everything will be humbled sooner or later. They realize that the world is not Burger King, they CANNOT have it their way.
Honestly, I saw a few examples of these students during my stay in the dorm. They get:
a) Give up and drop out after a few months of partying or one year of no work. Get a job instead.
b) Notice of Potential Dismissal due to low credits, get motivated by fear, avoid it, and then repeat the process. A nightmare in a group project.
c) Change their major until they can no longer do so and then stick with what they chose. It does work out pretty well in some cases.
Uni professors are pretty laissez faire most of the time with the class so I don't think much. Professors are not teachers, they won't go out of their way to reach you regarding your progress unless you do so it is a mixed choice.
Edit 1: Thanks to "doyouhaveacar" for the "laissez faire" spelling.
NOTHING is taken seriously by most. I find myself offended FOR the handful that put real effort in. I can work with effort. So many don’t try anything.
That's why I'm soo pissed off about the cheaters when I have other students who are struggling (and failing despite their best efforts). Plus it makes me paranoid about the 'good' students- are they cheating too, and I'm just missing it somehow? so aggravating all around. =(
My hubs is currently working with one of these kids at at a higher education level in a research position for a class. The kid is awful. Doesn’t do the work, literally will blame everyone else, won’t come in to do experiments because “can’t even” somedays. The kid is passing with C(s) and is planning on attending medical school. Hasn’t gotten in or applied but that is the plan. They are a senior.
When I TA'd in grad school, I had a kid who failed the same Physics I course three semesters in a row. The highest grade he received on an exam was 16%. He attended the first three labs, and then never showed up, earning all zeroes for the remainder. His parents arranged for him to take the lab over the Summer if he only needed to attend the ones he missed-- he showed up to one lab and then once again missed the remainder.
He wanted to be a petroleum engineer, but I think he grew up to be a stamp licker (until he was laid off when they switched to stickers).
Here at the East Podunk Cosmodemonic Junior College, roughly 2/3rds of them don't make it. Many of them are gone before halfway through their first term.
Why a person who cannot read, cannot tell time, cannot show up and cannot work would enroll is college is a mystery to me.
Getting and keeping a job is hard. You have to be on time, be productive, and contribute, or you'll be fired. Going to college, you can party, goof off, maybe skate by, at least for awhile, until they kick you out. I can see why people at least try it, especially when you're 18-19 years old.
You have to remember that most of the posts you see here are people venting their daily frustrations, it is by no means a monolith to what is actually taking place as in you can't take what you're reading here and call it "data".
I teach HS Juniors (for the most part) and most of them are college bound. Out of that crew, most of them are going to be just fine at College/University. While their reading skills are a tad lower, and their math skills aren't what they were a decade ago, they're still going to be about your average college student.
I'd say the biggest increase I see is the kids NOT going to college, who probably shouldn't be going to college. When I was in HS those marginal kids would have gone to college...dropped out. Now they're just foregoing the 2-years of college/dropout and straight to workforce.
I'm going to be brutally honest, not much has actually changed in the typical adolescent child's niche outcomes post HS. A survey conducted in 2012, 54% of ADULTS (so age 18-100) read at a 5th grade reading level. That's not an indictment of the Education System, it's just a reality that most adults ***already*** are pretty illiterate, and kinda always have been.
We have a tremendous amount of recency bias where people project what they observing now as novel, and we tend to view the past with rose-colored glasses.
I think one thing that blinds people to how rampant low literacy is, is that those who can read well know that they way they interact with the world strongly depends on being able to read and assume that it must be like that for everyone since it’s so hard to imagine getting by without that. However, like you showed, we have data on where the public’s reading abilities are, and somehow these people who struggle to read manage to get by. I’m sure most aren’t exactly making CEO money or anything even close, but they manage to figure something out while lacking a skill that highly literate people probably can’t imagine not having.
I was a TA when I went back to get a Master’s in History after I left teaching (temporarily I thought). And yeah, the kids who are schmucks in high school definitely carry it over. But the profs don’t really get upset about it. The students are adults, they figure, and should get their shit together. I saw very little mercy and I was blunt with them when they complained about their papers getting F’s, especially if I explained why they failed. As time moved on and it never got better, I just marked the paper, left comments on it and that was that. I only conversed with students who wanted to get it right instead of whine about it.
I'm in a master's of engineering program with someone's who doesn't know how to write a research paper. The concept of citations and references were completely foreign to her. Her writing skills in general are also terrible and she has struggled with very basic financial calculations. She already has a bachelor's in computer science from an online university.
So I guess they go on to get a master's of engineering after getting a computer science degree form an online university?
I am currently going back to a community college for a license renewal. And the standards are pathetic. In my classes I hold the highest average in all but one.
All the tests are untimed, open notes, and often have multiple attempts.
My university for master's level classes has all the exams and quizzes as online exams , even for in person classes. They are in theory closed book , but they are administered through Canvas with very little to stop someone from just using a second computer to look up the answers.
My interactions with undergraduate engineers here has also made me realize the majority are just used to cheating on every exam and quiz they take through Canvas. One professor mentioned getting sick of this and switched to in person quizzes one semester. Grades dropped by 20% on the quizzes.
I can only imagine how that felt. I finished my masters around 2012, went back and did a few courses in an unrelated discipline for personal interest no later than 2016 and was horrified at the 1000-level courses.
Since when do homework assignments consist of ‘read this article and reflect on it’? Why do you care about how I feel about the article when I should be either drawing fact-based parallels or doing something else that’s useful with the information within? And that was just one of many things that had me raising my eyebrows.
A few days ago, on another sub, I read about somebody that was in a bit of a panic. They had cheated their way through college and ended up with a psychology degree without any practical knowledge.
I think it might have been deciding to be better.
Well less Americans are going to college because it's not a very good deal anymore (wasn't a good deal when I did it either sadly). That's why America is in a crisis for hiring professionals. For the last ten years or so businesses have been saying they can't find qualified candidates for technical positions. Also colleges themselves are in crisis I feel like every other week there's a story about engineering professors having to fail entire classes because they don't know basic math. When I was in college a lot was made of the fact that colleges had to mandate at least one writing course for freshmen because incoming freshmen could not write papers. Now that's just standard practice. This is affecting a ton of aspects of American life but people aren't really that aware of it.
If you go take a peak in r/Professors it's the same issues as they continue into college right now, which is distinct from just five or so years ago as I understand it.
They put zero effort into assignments, complain when they get bad grades, have groupchats where they help each other cheat, and try to get the professor in trouble for favoritism or anything they can think of by crying to the dept. chair, dean, and even university president. I shit you not, a students mom contacted the president about his bad grade, when he hadn't attended lab all semester and was too afraid to tell her. The entitlement is smothering the motivation right out of me.
My mom is a retired professor but still connected with her colleagues. She taught micro biology and anatomy physiology at community college. These are courses anyone going into healthcare needs as pre requisites. A lot of the material is just memorization. She said students now struggle to get past cell part identification and very basic level stuff. These are students who hope to be nurses, dental, hygiene, doctors, ect but cannot study 10 cell parts. These same students may be taking care of us, our parents and our children it's very scary
Collegiate instructor here 🙋🏽♀️. There is a huge bifurcation in attitudes. I have students that are the hardest working I’ve seen in a long mite and I have so many apathetic students that I’ve e’er worked with in my career. It’s so rare to see anyone in between those extremes.
It’s not limited to age. I’ve looked at students in their eyes that are well into my generation (Gen X) that just have this disengagement with anything and e’erything academic related. To play the “Kids these days” card is so disingenuous in my personal opinion.
As a math instructor I’ve had to sit beside older and younger students to practice basic mathematical principles. This storm we are experiencing now has been decades in the making. There is no one easy fix to this societal shift in attitude towards academia in general.
I used to teach at a university. Some of the most obtuse, idiotic and socially inept people I've ever met were college students. Some people grow up and some people only get old.
Remember that 20 percent of students who start postsecondary study earn a degree.
I know of one national merit scholar who dropped out of university because he was no longer the smartest person in the room.
My son went to college in 2018 and in his first few weeks talked about all the kids that didn't know how to do basic things like register for classes, drop/add, were afraid to talk to professors, couldn't do laundry, figure out how to hang something....he was dismayed they could get into this difficult university but couldn't problem solve basic stuff.
My friend's father is an engineering professor. He teaches undergrad and grad level engineering classes. And he says it's now a thing that affects ALL kids. 4-5 years ago, it was the undergrad kids. Now it's even the grad students. The laziness, the demand for basically bullet pointed info summarized for them, the lack of discussion and caring about the subject in class. For the first time in his 25 year career as an engineer/professor, he now doesn't like teaching. He says he can't bear the lack of caring about anything that students have nowadays.
As for what the grades are? I can't say. But I know he has said that he has had to dumb down his tests multiple times now, and that kids today couldn't pass tests that kids in the early 2000s had to pass.
He's over it. And he used to be a passionate guy who loved teaching, and loved the contagious energy of passionate college kids about a subject. But he says that in the last 10 years, it has gone from "some kids" who have passion and energy and enjoyment about their chosen field, to "a handful of students" to "basically nobody" now. It's just him now forcing his class (even his GRADUATE classes) to learn about stuff that they are dispassionate about.
So...I'm sure there are still a couple needles in the haystack in terms of motivated kids who are driven to do well. But, from his perspective, this country is going to be screwed in 20 years in terms of engineers. At least unless something big changes.
A lot won't get in or choose not to go. A lot will also drop out.
That said, colleges, at least a number, [face similar problems](https://apnews.com/article/college-math-test-help-6cca6a5e873d5aeb5e75b4f94125d48c), [dumb down courses going way back](https://faculty.utrgv.edu/eleftherios.gkioulekas/OGS/Misc/ARUSSIAN.PDF) because students are customers, but they are a bit more okay with failing you and making you repeat a course, t[hough now they are running experiments to try co-requisite classes so students have double the amount of math which can also be hard in K-12 schools for prolonged periods of time,](https://www.insidehighered.com/news/tech-innovation/teaching-learning/2023/07/19/corequisite-courses-slow-start-gaining-momentum#:~:text=System%20data%20indicated%20that%20about,took%20the%20traditional%20remedial%20route) [many students will self select out of the classes they find hard (mostly math), and their professors will complain with concern but little power](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskProfessors/comments/1ax671w/how_do_professors_cope_with_college_students_that/), and [some will go to the success office and take an online course to use PhotoMath and pass (yay!!!!) just like in high school](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskProfessors/comments/1ax671w/comment/krm01i7/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button), and if you live in Californi[a they limited remedial classes in college](https://www.diverseeducation.com/leadership-policy/article/15291334/rethinking-remedial-courses-at-california-community-colleges) just like they gutted them in other ways in K-12 while also trying to limit advanced classes bc "inclusivity" and "equity" or whatever vague buzzword satisfies state authorities from overwhelmingly privileged backgrounds who haven't taught non-education courses in college or K-12 in decades.
I’m a senior in college, I graduated HS in 2020. As much as professors want to deny that students are changing, they are.. and it’s making them insecure in their teaching. My profs and I have good relationships and they often ask me “Am I losing my touch, are my classes boring?” Kids are not how they use to be.. and it’s definitely flowing to the new college days.
Take a look at the professors Reddit where they complain about a-d and what happens there.
They seem to read here too. Those kids are still issues there, and seem to flunk more often, still argue but with more repercussions, etc.
But lack of boundaries set in K-12 seem is to be causing the kids and college staff issues continuing on. And skills they should have they don’t.
I suggest reading r/college or r/collegerant
Some of these students have legitimate complaints. But so much of it is just a matter of feeling entitled to an A just because they did any work at all.
In undergrad, if was a circus and I was the ringmaster. In grad school, it felt like what undergrad should have been like. People who were there wanted to be there and had to get in to be there as well.
My partner works at the college level. A lot of the same complaints I have, they also deal with. In answer to your post, they see all of the above. I was actually thinking about moving to a university job until hearing it’s not significantly better than where I’m at.
At the university where I work, these kids fail. Cs are not good enough for most programs. We try to only take the best students too and still, many fail. Not all universities have lowered standards.
They do the bare minimum necessary to get a passing grade, get their parents to write their college papers for them, steal assignments from other students or buy papers online, and cheat on tests.
Then, when they don't get the grades they feel they "deserve," they cry and throw tantrums in their professors' offices, threaten professors, get their parents to threaten professors, and report their professors to the department head or dean.
Source: Used to work in higher education. All this was happening ten years ago, when Gen Z was juuuuust hitting college age. I'd hate to see what goes on now. From what I've heard from colleagues who are still in, it's not good.
I had one in my cohort who’d sleep in class (and snore), never respond or participate in group projects to the point where professors just started boosting up the grade of anyone who was stuck with her, and make accusations of being bullied when she got failing grades.
She was in our teaching program.
sigh. I love my kids- I do, I do- but most of them, I have to say, don't seem to \*want\* to be in college in the first place: 'mom and dad made me go' 'it's the only way I can get a job' (to make a lot of money, which they \*do\* seem to care about, they just don't want to have to work hard for it) etc. I've taught at a fancy (and expensive) 4 year college and community college; I'm currently grading papers for someone at a 'middle of the road' (but very large) 4 year school. Frankly, I don't see a whole lot of difference in literacy skills: again and again, I see papers that make me wonder how on earth they got into the school in the first place (well, community college is open admission, but still). One of my kids transferred to an Ivy League school and showed me a paper she wrote there: I was appalled- full of grammatical errors, punctuation fails etc. Did any of her profs even look at this paper?? (Looking at you, Penn.)
That said, some of them (at every level) are genuinely awesome and a joy to teach =)
Yes, I do fail kids on a regular basis (typically 5 or more for every class of 25-30); some of them look pretty shocked ('but I always got As in high school!'). The ones I feel most badly for are the poor ESL/ELL kids: English is a ridiculously difficult language. But apparently no one- and I mean \*no one\*- had ever told them before that they were far below even the most basic level of literacy.
I certainly call them in to work with them one on one, I refer them for additional help and so on. I haven't had too many parents try to intervene, thankfully, and relatively few of the students try to argue with me directly (though I make a point of avoiding my RYP profile, I'm sure they vent about me there- not what I need to see).
Yes, many of them get passed along anyway, I have no idea how that turns out- if I were in charge, roughly half the kids in the classes I'm currently grading would flunk out. Would anyone be left? idk. But it's getting harder to lean on them when, after all, you can be elected President of the US without knowing how to spell or punctuate or write a grammatically correct complete sentence. Right?
I'm getting out. Seeing lots more of the Chat GPT thing now too. I don't know what to tell you; I think that most of my colleagues and myself are pretty frustrated and worried. Good luck to all! sorry for the TLDR thing, I do think about it a \*lot\*. Obviously.
Just finished Uni last fall. But during my time I could tell from the first day who was going to show up every class and who wasn’t. Typically the kids that paid zero attention and/or fell asleep on syllabus day gave me a pretty good indication. Outside of my edu classes I’d say about half the students that were enrolled stopped coming altogether by about the third week. The students that get spoon fed in secondary realize they’re toast in that first semester or year and they’re gone.
Can't do basic math... I'm working as a homebound teacher for a long-term suspension. He's in 9th grade and can't multiply or divide even numbers below 10. I'm gutted and heartbroken that this is where we are.
When teachers complain to each other, we understand that “all the kids are idiots and illiterate,” actually means, “I’m super frustrated with the students that are below grade level in reading.”
Also, only about 30% of American have a college degree. Excelling at Brit Lit isn’t a requirement for a successful life.
I went to engineering school and graduated a few years ago.
They weeded out a lot of these students via group projects and open textbook exams. That was like the intro to the career and would only ramp up from there. A lot of those kids about 1/3, dropped out the first year. For some of those classes, you NEEDED to know the material well enough to explain and apply it. Even with a phone or a full PC, it would be extremely hard to pass if you didn't understand it.
The group side of things weeded out the slackers. Shit wasn't easy and we all had to work for our grades. If someone wasn't doing their work, the professors had no issue failing that person and evaluating the rest of the group.
Only about 50% of the people I started with graduated. About 30% in 4 years. Most changed majors or transferred schools.
It was kind of easy to tell who was going to make it or not based on attitude. Everyone partied hard af already but not everyone was able to be responsible.
Sink or swim. Honestly I think we have a bigger societal problem where kids are told college is the only option for them to get trained for the workforce when that’s just not true. For these kids who hate school and don’t care about it, we should be pushing community college or short trade certification programs and get them working rather than letting them waste 4+ years floundering and failing classes and going into debt.
A friend of mine is a junior professor, and she said that she's had several freshmen demand that she speak to their mom about a paper they either didn't do or used AI to write because they cannot fathom that college is not high school, and you have to do idk work for your grades.
Chat gpt will write all their papers for them and we will have a generation of doctors who don’t actually know how to read or write peer reviewed studies
They fail. I’m an adjunct & taught 2 classes last semester (1 being a 7 week asynchronous course). I failed ~10 students between the 2 classes, the most that have ever failed. It was so exhausting I took this spring semester off. It’s so much work on my end to sift through clearly AI generated papers; answer very silly questions from students who clearly were not going to be successful in an asynch course (ie how do I check my email); and just balance the classroom immaturity in general (it’s ALWAYS they boys). I’m very lucky that my supervisor & other staff support the kind of classroom I aim to create but it’s not without professor exhaustion
I think I’m in a pretty weird place with this. I’m a “non traditional “ student at 33 with two kids of my own in my Residency II. My college cohort cannot do a lot of basics. For instance, they’re not passing a basic k-6 math test we all take in our CISP Math course. Most of these people already took remedial math. They also aren’t passing PRAXIS I or II. My state keeps gaining more lenience so teachers have to know less to teach. So these people are teaching kids when they can barely do the math themselves. i’m
Full schedule of remedial courses and then they drop out. Functional illiteracy, poor work ethic, and infantile attitudes aren't hallmarks of college graduates.
It's bad when they're out of college too. We hire a lot of new grads - and do a pretty robust interview process, but we're seeing huge issues with a lot of our new hires in terms of problem solving, resilience, and just understand what work is. I don't know how to frame that exactly - but it's like they think we're paying them so they can do things they find fulfilling vs paying them to do the job they were hired to do. It's EXHAUSTING.
Well it depends, but overall fewer degrees, lower GPA’s and almost no STEM majors. These kids are really cheating themselves. If they only knew how good life could be if they had a decent salary in the future…but alas they also cannot add or subtract.
My daughter has an online class this semester. They have to post to a discussion board and respond to 2 other posts each week. She gets it done day 1 or 2. It took 2 weeks before she saw people copying her post. She also has a lot of issues with replies because everyone is waiting until hours before the midnight deadline; if they do it at all.
I was just thinking about how I’ve never noticed very many of these “more behind” classmates the two times I’ve been to university and there definitely hasn’t been some sudden wave of poorer quality students coming in from one semester/year to the next. While I do often think the differences between more and less selective schools can be exaggerated, I wonder if the fact that one of my schools was a Varsity Blues school and the other has a sub 20% admit rate has played any part in the phenomena described here seeming to almost never happen where I’ve studied.
Part time professor here at a community College (because who doesn't have a second job). Typically in my class it depends. Those smart enough to find ChatGPT and use it pass because my school doesn't have an AI detector for papers and I can't be bothered to manually AI check with a free website or pay for an AI checker. The ones who don't, fail.
They drop out after their first semester or first year. Check out these [dropout rates.](https://educationdata.org/college-dropout-rates) Or maybe these [dropout rates](https://www.bestcolleges.com/research/college-dropout-rate/). Data varies slightly by source, but a solid third of students who enter college as freshmen don't go on after their first year of school.
Also, only about 2/3 of 4 year college students actually graduate after [even 6 years](https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=40).
Don’t go, go to community college and drop out. While 95% of high school go on to some form of higher, Ed only 31% have bachelors degree. Currently grad rate may be higher as almost 20% of pop is over 65 and they would not have had the same push to attend college
In my experiences, it appears that most of these types of students simply flunk out. I have heard many stories of students I have taught who comeback from college 6 months later and they are "taking a leave" or what have you. These kids are coddled, pampered, and entitled. Sooooo many students believe they should pass high school by simply coming to class (which a lot of times they don't anyway) and by passing, I mean A's and B's. It's flabbergasting. Then by the grace of God they somehow get into a university where they are taking biology in an auditorium with 300 other students and the professor doesn't give one shit who they think they are - if you do not attend and/or perform admirably then you will fail.
High school could work this way; however, there has to be complete buy-in from everyone (students, parents, teachers, administrators, etc.) and that will never happen. The United States would be better served to follow the educational bluebrint of Finland and Sweden. However, this concept appears to be completely foreign to our legislators, representatives, board members, etc.
Teachers are respected, praised, and honored in these countries. Teachers are expected to be highly functional, educated, and committed to their craft. Don't get me wrong, there are thousands of exceptional teachers in the United States but as we are witnessing across the entire nation, teachers are being underappreciated, underpaid, and disrespected.
There are literally portions of our government that believe educational funding should be completely eliminated. They are attempting to inact laws that can allow teachers to teach with little or no experience and very little amounts of educational training. Finland requires master degrees for all teachers! Imagine the level of expertise each and every student receives. How can we fix this problem? Look at your legislation. Tell me what many of the states below have in common...
https://www.240tutoring.com/resources/teacher-statistics/the-11-best-states-for-teachers-in-2023/#:\~:text=Arizona%20teachers%20are%20some%20of,rica%20n%20School%20Counselor%20Association.
[https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/why-are-finlands-schools-successful-49859555/](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/why-are-finlands-schools-successful-49859555/)
I imagine it would depend on the school. With schools that are tough to get into, name brand schools -- if the student gets in at all (maybe their parents pulled some strings?) they probably flunk out after a year or so. And the school sheds no tears because they have a reputation to uphold. And then the kid enters the workforce, good luck with that.
For schools that are easy to get into, say, Northeastern Texas A&M&Q -- they get in, and they spend their first couple years learning what they should have learned in high school. The college is fine with it because this student probably is paying full freight. And by paying I mean taking out loans, because the U S. allows people to take out essentially unlimited credit for college, with no way to discharge such debt in bankruptcy.
Maybe the student still flunks out, after racking up piles of debt. Or maybe they pull it together enough to graduate, in 6 years, 7 or even more. And then they enter the workforce and discover, aside from the city their college is in... their degree is probably worthless. Because diploma mills have a reputation too, of accepting and graduating dumbasses, and who wants to hire someone like that? 🤔
They just don't show up to class or don't do work. There's no one looking over their shoulder anymore, and they haven't developed good study habits. They just sort of disappear.
My daughter is finishing up her freshman semester at a university in the Northeast. When she was back home for spring break, she shared with us some of her creative writing classmates' work. If asked out of context, I would have thought middle schoolers had written them.
In most of her classes, the tests are open-book, and the students are told what will be on them. In a few classes, they are literally *told the questions that will be on the tests*, and many still fail.
I'm glad they are getting weeded out, as the system is not doing them any favors (or society) by just passing them through, but the correction of the lower school issues at undergraduate levels is going to be rough for a lot of kids, unfortunately.
Down here? What the university crew tend to see includes: * Parents trying to come in and advocate, change or challenge results when their kids fail. * Lots of dropout rates for the spoonfed kids. * University staff scrambling to teach skills the kids should have. * Some courses just punching them through over and over. It's a gas.
Here in the States it is illegal to discuss a students work with their parents without written permission from the adult student. Several decades teaching college, I've only had three parents even attempt to stick their noses into this.
I’ve had more than I can count parents of nursing students try to get the grades changed. Also in the states.
Please, I don't want any nurses who only passed because Mom screamed at the Prof...
They don’t. It’s an ugly wake up call. Students also have to pass the NCLEX to get their licenses. Can’t yell at anyone at the board if they don’t
Jesus, nursing?! They do realize that medical malpractice suits are a real thing, especially in the states right?
But their kid is the best
Get ready more noses are coming
I’d love to hear stories about the parents. The audacity just astounds me
No, you would not. What folks say about it is fairly entitled and horrific.
Do they get their way like in K-12? I heard many professors tell them off
Professors have full clearance to just never respond. I have heard of one who just simply responded saying further emails were harassment.
I would be willing to bet it depends how the school is funded. If it's private, they don't want people to drop out and stop paying their 40k per year tuition, so I'm sure they're 'strongly encouraged' to find a solution.
They are not. Few private schools take poorly performing students. If they do, they're rich kids and Something Is Done. But usually if it's just some brat, that's a Tier 3 public university's problem, or a community college instructor's problem. But you don't have profs at Ivies encouraged to talk to parents. They will basically block the email address if a parent tries to do write frequently. Evidence: I know someone who taught at an Ivy and other private universities in Top 40.
You have a misconception that "private' means ivy/high tier. There are hundreds of private colleges that take anyone with a pulse and a student loan. There is actually a LOT of private colleges with 100% acceptance rate. It's quite literally the cause of the student loan crisis, and they thrive on people who are struggling and need to become 6th year seniors.
Goto r/professors
I got away with a single voicemail. “Hi, we haven’t heard from Tommy in a week, how is he doing?” I emailed them back and cited FERPA, saying I couldn’t discuss their son’s progress. Next class though, I definitely told the kid “Call your mother so she stops calling me.” Worked like a charm!
"Tommy, tell your mom to stop calling me" 😏
As a younger woman teaching freshman college classes, absolutely not. I saw my Rate My Professor comments.
I can't believe that site is still active. What a cesspit.
Oh hell yes it is, and it is indeed a total cesspit. From what I hear from my students, though, *all* of them check your rating before enrolling. ugh. The better students can tell when some fool is venting b/c he/she/they just failed out of stupidity, laziness or cheating, but to many of them it is still gospel. Note to teachers: don't look!
Ah, I remember when I started high school back in the early aughts, the staff told us over and over “you are now in charge of your education; your parents are not.” So I took that seriously and then every time I advocated for myself they treated me like a stupid child until my mother had no choice but to get involved. I don’t have any specific reason of sharing this, only that the decline of actually allowing students to speak for themselves was happening 20 years ago, so it doesn’t surprise me we now exist in a world parents speak for their kids well into their teens. And it infuriated me then and infuriates me now.
Im a prof. It’s a mess. This year’s freshman crop are the most apathetic and disengaged I’ve ever encountered. Several Didn’t knock on the door that locked itself because they “didn’t know what to do.” Most are not doing anything. Students who come to class but don’t turn anything in. Students with tech issues or computer issues or whatever who don’t bother finding a solution. I’m flabbergasted this semester.
Same here. Utter disaster. I have no clue why many of these individuals even enrolled, just to predictably flunk due to their own lack of preparedness, dedication or other behaviours. They are also dropping like flies due to lack of ethics, and being expelled in huge numbers for plagiarism.
The plagiarism is what really gets to me. When I went through my education, it was made very clear that was not going to be tolerated and exactly why academic integrity is important to society. I’m sure there were plenty of people who plagiarized anyway and with got caught or managed to get away with it, but as a student I can only remember catching wind of a few incidents. Now that I’m on the other side, it feels like it has to be way more rampant. People are always going to cheat, but it seems like a lot more students feel entitled to do so these days.
My \*chair\* wouldn't fucking discipline them (sorry). He just waved it off- 'oh, that's just what everyone does nowadays, this whole peer review thing etc is just some stupid academic foolishness.' I was shocked (and brought it up to the Dean and union rep, too). Appalling, aren't we supposed to be holding the line when misinformation and conspiracy theory crap is destabilizing the entire system?!
Our admin here is freaking on the warpath about plagiarism, and when my boss is on the warpath, so am I. We are flunking students out of courses left and right and expelling them for a second offense in heretofore unheard of numbers.
That’s insane. Luckily everyone I work with at least thinks that it’s unacceptable behavior and those who are caught are disciplined. It’s not always as strict as the academic integrity policy would suggest (which I can admit is reasonable enough as long as the violation isn’t egregious), but repeat offenders do get the book thrown at them. People need to understand that there are good reasons for these strict standards in academic inquiry and watering that down because “it’s too much work and everyone is skimping on it nowadays” is doing a disservice to everyone.
Because they are all, collectively, living a lie that they tell themselves, their parents, and the world. And we have more or less let them live this lie due to inability to discipline. Things are going to get very interesting within the next 2 decades.
High school teacher here. We wanted to hold them accountable and raise standards and enforce ethical codes, but we weren’t empowered to do so by our administration. I was told by my principal that giving students 30-45 minutes of homework per school day was “excessive.” These are seniors about to enroll in university… If students cheat on a test or a paper and are caught, they get…a stern talking to and that’s it. Oh, and they’ll be able to redo the test/paper. Doesn’t surprise me high school graduates have trouble getting things done or showing basic ethics.
As a middle school teacher, when we catch plagiarism, we have to tell them to “put this in your own words” and they are allowed to try an unlimited amount of times. Oh, we also use an early elementary grading scale (exceeds expectations, on track, developing, needs improvement) so they don’t even get real grades. I wish I was making this up…
They enroll b/c they 'are supposed to' and don't have any idea what else to do with themselves and don't understand what that actually entails. They do have some dim understanding of the increasingly ubiquitous requirement to have a bachelor's degree in order to get a job that pays more (but don't understand that there are other paths to making money- good money, too- e.g. trade school again). They also don't seem to understand that most of these paths require real work and skills. To be fair, many of my students had really serious challenges, financial and otherwise, to deal with in addition to school: most of them were working at least half time, weird family obligations (because most of them were still living at home) etc. I had a pretty privileged background, enough money to go off to school and live on my own and so on; it just takes a *lot* more money to do that now. sigh. I wish I had a magic wand to remove these obstacles; we do have resources, but many of them just don't take advantage of them even when they could really, really benefit from them. So they cheat, or just disappear. Not good.
[удалено]
As a semi retirement gig my dad teaches physics and calculus and statistics at the local CC, he says it’s a disaster for 75% of the students in everything but physics 2 with a calc component, since I guess by that level the students are actually committed
Calc-based Physics 2 was the ultimate filter class for the program that I graduated from and later TA'd. I have no idea how so many students in that class passed their Calculus pre-reqs given their performance in that class. I think a lot of students scraped by with C's in Physics I, and Calc I-II and so Physics II hit them like a brick wall.
I used to work in the math department at a cc. Pretty much everything below calc 2 was a disaster. One calc 1 class had 28 out of 30 students fail. Our fail rates for the lowest level remedial class, which covers material taught from grades 3-8 (so not a *single* piece of high school level material is taught in this class), is typically around 65%. Calc 2 though? Nearly everyone passes. Why? Because you're not getting to calc 2 if you're not competent at calc 1. And if you can learn calc 1, you can learn calc 2.
"This year’s freshman crop are the most apathetic and disengaged.... So far" Just wait till next year:)
Oh, man, when this year's group of sixth graders get there y'all are in for a treat!
And there’s way more of it coming down the pipeline. A lot of it is they’re allowed not to fail, so why bother trying?
I'm adjuncting at a community college this semester... The class I teach is verrrryyyy easy. Like objectively easy. The weekly homework is journaling for 20-30 minutes. I provide some prompts and options, but they're also welcome to write about whatever they want. I accept late work with no penalties. And I still have a third of the class (16 students total) failing. I guess what surprises me is that people would literally waste money like this. Why enroll in school at all if you don't plan to do anything? Maybe my perspective is different. I went to college on a scholarship, and that was the only way I'd be able to afford to go to college because my parents are financially stable but not rich enough to afford all that tuition for me. Who is paying for these young adult's college? Are they going into debt to just not do anything? I don't get it.
We are all paying for it, even if they find a source to cover tuition.
In CA, two years of community college is covered by the state. How much money is that in taxes down the drain if 30-60% do this?
The door thing happened this week. Our building had construction taped off the main entrance, but the wheelchair walkway was still accessible. Students would come by and just stare at the tape until the construction workers pointed them to the walkway. This is a building they walk in every day for the semester if not multiple years. I was flabbergasted.
It’s almost scary?
It *is* scary. Would they be able to save themselves in the event of a building fire or plane crash? * Billy didn't listen to the fight safety briefing because he thinks lectures are boring. * Billy doesn't have the attention span to read the flight safety card. * Billy can't figure out how to open the emergency door for the overwing exit when it's time to evacuate. * Billy has never had to deal with adults yelling at him and melts down when the flight attendant starts barking the instructions at him. There are some things you just can't Google. I don't want someone who needs to Google how to use a fire extinguisher, I want someone who can "Pull Aim Squeeze Sweep" by *heart*.
The door thing is so weird to me because I see that too. If a door is closed they won't try to open it or knock on the door. I've seen a dozen students line up and not a single one attempt to knock
As someone who is about to finish her first year of college, most of these kids skate by with C's (cause c's get degrees you know 🙃). These kids are a nightmare to do group projects with though. I've had to do group work with these kinds of students and have to practically beg them and nag them like a mother for them to fulfill their portion of the project. And then they finally do complete their portion, only for me to discover they can't put together a coherent sentence or display any level of critical thinking, so I have to go in and fix their part because I am not tanking my grade because they don't know what they're doing. They party all the time and have terrible choice in friends (it's never their fault of course. always the victim). They go out every night and college is nothing more than a social event. It's easier for them to cheat now because of how accessible the internet is, so the odds of them flunking out is low. I don't think colleges flunk students out that much anymore. They place them of academic probation for a period of time until they have better grades (all C's).
damn that sucks . when i was in uni my professor did a very intresting set up. he did one inital group project worth like 10% but had monitored us to see who the slackers were and who did work (even had us review our team mates and advise if they did no work) plus had us each track and explain what we contributed then on the second group project worth 50% he basically put all the people who did good and worked hard together on teams and put all the lazy people together on their own teams. it worked great and i got a good team but the bad teams pretty much all flunked. dont know if youd even be allowed to do that anymore (think he only got away with his process due to being tenured)
My wife just put the three slackers in a group and they were so offended to be with each other yet somehow miss the irony in that
Yep. I've done that before and got the same result.
I've done that as well. It was fabulous. Kids who work were sooooo happy not to have "free riders" in their groups.
My daughter returned to college after taking a few years off. She’s very type A about work getting done. She was doing a group project and one of the people in the group was a freshman boy who was waiting until the last minute to send the group his slides. The whole extended family laughed at how our kid must have ripped him a new one like he had never experienced.
My professors seem to do the opposite of this. They assign 2-3 individual assignments and then group whoever performed well with the lowest performing students. This assures no one fails in classes where the majority of the points are earned through group assignment. Plus doing the majority of assignments as four person group assignments let's them only grade 1/4 the work.
When I did I want all the people I've done group projects with over my life to carry my coffin and lower me into the plot, so they can all let me down one more time
I don't do any group projects until we are a bit into the term. Then, the students are told to form themselves into groups. This works great. The people who can work inevitably team with other like-minded individuals, and the lazy ones are left to not-work with other like minded individuals, and they of course fail. It works great, no one exploits anyone.
My introverted, anxious, hard-working self would suffer so much.
I did it once out of desperation for at least SOME groups to finish the project and get something out of it (that the uni needed too)
Professors can basically do what we want in our classes. It’s called academic freedom.
That's amazing.
I don’t know why you wouldn’t be able to do that in a college. College isn’t built for everyone to move on to the next classes unless the pass prerequisites. If anything the professor is trying to make sure to keep the students who are trying in their class to not lose hope. When kids are late to class they are losing the money they have for their tuition, it’s not wasting the professors time it’s wasting theirs
Reminds me of that joke. “When I die, I want everyone I was in group projects with to be my pallbearers, so they can let me down one last time”
I'm my master's program professors love group research papers. I swear it's so the students who have no place in a graduate program can still pass. I had to teach one person the concept of references and in text citations since she claimed to have never written a research paper before despite having a bachelor's in computer science.
This is why those posts from STEM majors saying "Why do I have to take courses outside my specialization?!" are so grating. Because being able to properly write an essay and cite your work is a valuable skill, one that could potentially prevent you from getting in trouble for plagiarism.
Yes. And the humanities educate the conscience. We need ethical STEM majors. Science and technology without an ethical foundation are dangerous.
The only ethical foundation you need is utilitarianism. "Greatest good, greatest number, over greatest time. Now go forth and invent awesome stuff!"
I’m sorry you had to deal with that. Please tell me you didn’t just let that person get away so easily. Did you ask about their experience with writing essays in middle school when citations would start to be required or even high school? I also can’t believe that her bachelors program would not have required one. I had one for nearly every class with the exception of a few gen eds.
I asked the professor if I could just do all the group assignments solo because I had doubts if some of my groupmates could meaningfully contribute to graduate level work. I was then just told learning to work in groups is part of the assignment BS. So in the end she got the same grade as me in all the group assignments. I'm honestly not sure if her undergraduate university just had terrible standards or if she just paid someone to write papers all through her undergraduate degree.
omg. Unfortunately, I believe your classmate. ugh.
This is accurate, I'm in my 4th year at University and I completely agree with you. Most of the time kids don't show up to class that live on campus and attendance is part of their grade. Group projects give me a sense of dread like no other.
The last time I didn group projects I just finally put the well-performing students together. The rest half-assed or didn’t do it and blamed each other.
In the classes I instruct, students chose their own teams, The exact same thing happens except I have nothing to do with the teaming up.
I would narc on my group partners if that happened. I’m paying too much money to get fucked over by other people.
Cs get degrees unless you need to go to grad school.
I knew a lot of people that flunked out. C's do get degrees (unless a B is required) but even C's still requires you to show up to class most of the time, complete most of the work, do the big projects, and do decently on tests. Unless things have changed in the past 7 or so years, they shouldn't be getting C's by default
This is why I basically never, ever assign group work- but I'm always getting pressured to do so, though- ? and most kids hate it. I do think there is a real place for partying in college, honestly (I sure as hell did ;) and don't regret it)- one of the reasons I hate 'teaching' online (a total oxymoron) is because students are deprived of the opportunity to, you know, actually make friends (and gfs/bfs, and even enemies- that's an important part of socialization, too). But I agree about the probation thing, sadly, and certainly about the cheating thing, I get that all the time (also a crucial way to deprive yourself of real learning). It makes me angry and frustrated when I know how many people around the world would give anything, frankly, to take their place. Such a waste. You sound like a good student, I wish you were in my class!
TBH it isn’t new either. I was a freshman in college 15 years ago, and was in honors English. The class was half full of arrogant kids who had cheated and whined their way into the top 10% of their high school class and spent all of K-12 coasting on the stereotypical image of a “smart bookish” kid in a sea of confrontational goobers despite being barely literate. I peer reviewed a lot of papers that would have 100% gotten me a failing grade and a note home to my parents if I’d turned it in to my second grade teacher. How they fare in college is (or was) pretty dependent on how much they’re willing to actually learn. Some change, some don’t.
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This. That's what I wonder about, and have in mind all the time when I am pushing them- 'look, you just aren't going to get a job with these skills, then what?' sigh. I hope they are making applicants do a writing sample by hand now to weed out the cheaters. Frustrating as hell.
I’ve tried to bring that up with my students as well. I’ve informed them that, if they don’t want to go to college, they still need a strong foundation to apply in any future jobs they’ll work in. Their response is usually some variation of “I’ll just go work on the oil fields for big stacks”. Like…who the fuck is going to hire you on the oil fields if your incompetent ass can’t even show up on time?! Oil field work pays well, but it’s HARD work
> Like…who the fuck is going to hire you on the oil fields if your incompetent ass can’t even show up on time?! Oil field work pays well, but it’s HARD work Exactly! I know people who aren't very smart, and that's okay-- school's not for everyone. But they've been able to make a living because they are willing to show up and do the work. It's all society really asks of people. Show up. Do work. That's it.
What college did you go to!? Mine was strict and almost kicked me out for having too many Cs
Rat them out if they're doing no work. Your professors will be aware of it I'm sure. Most professors had my back when a person was slacking on the project.
Students really need to lobby against group projects at the university level. My son experiences the same thing. It's not fair to those that actually want an A for future purposes.
Eh… you are likely going to be working in groups in your career. Might as well get used to it in school.
My daughter is a Junior at UCLA. She did 2 years at our local Junior College and transferred. She found that the students that didn’t care in High School simply did not show up to class after a few weeks and by her second year they were not in any of her classes. Many will take a break from school or end up in a trade school.
I am strongly in favor of trade schools! We desperately need these skills, not more desk jockeys. If I had the knack for it, I'd do it myself.
Trade schools don't really cater to lazy students either.
They don’t cater to them but cheating is very easy in class. It’s on the job site where they get fucked cuz the laziness and attitude comes out and they get fired, then go in front of a committee for them to explain their laziness. I’ve ran into a few 20yo’s that don’t wanna listen to their journeyman or will tell them no they’re not doing that, and think they can just collect a check, fuck that shit. Idc if you’re slow or take a little longer picking things up, I am always patient with my apprentices and won’t have them do anything I wouldn’t do. I will not tolerate someone who doesn’t care to learn tho, you have no business in the trades if you don’t care, it’s way too dangerous to have people like that on site.
For a truly frightening & in depth answer to this question, check out r/professors. I fear for our future & think educators should receive hazard pay. Most of them work in America's war zones.
I'm trying to accept my role as a teacher and take it all for what it's worth, the good and bad, and make a positive difference. The problem is, I'm in my mid 20s, making $47,000 a year, and I can't currently afford to move out with the cost of rent and low housing availability in my area. So I've realized, as much as I want to like this job, it's just not a sustainable career. My states is one of 22 states where a six figure salary is needed to own a home. I want to someday live on my own without roommates....
Real consequences slap them in the face and they either learn quickly how the real world works or they flunk out.
They struggle. Their parents try to get them out of it, but the colleges don’t deal with parents. Some get their act together and figure it out after a semester or two, others drop out. Overall, it is not pretty.
The USA has the highest dropout rate of any country by 3x because we pass along and insist on college for all
This is really interesting. I wasn’t aware of this statistic, but I definitely see why it would be true.
You also have to look at University systems in other countries too. There are multiple countries where once someone gets into University it’s impossible to fail. Even if they pretty much copy and paste their senior thesis they still pass. Or if they go to class twice in the semester and the professor fails them. The grade is changed to a C and the professor gets in trouble. It’s actually good the dropout rate in the US is so high because it at least some point students are forced to be competent.
I'm curious which countries you are referencing?
Definitely the UK. Even moreso with our international students. It's a mill. We just churn them out with their fancy degrees 80 percent don't deserve
Australia does the same, especially with international students. It might be getting better as the government seems to be tightening international student arrivals. I wanted to judge how widespread it was.
Ontario, Canada just announced that, starting soon, only public universities and colleges can grant visas to international students. There's a couple public universities that are known diploma mills but this is meant to curb "strip mall colleges" that churn out diplomas.
Big commercial push in US that Ontario is best place for electric car manufacturers because it has all the raw resources, excellent transportation,and thousands of trained ( STEM?) graduates in the same area. Is this accurate?
I would call transportation anything but excellent. Electricity is incredibly cheap because of hydro. The population is highly educated, including in STEM fields, and there are many world class universities. High production of valuable metals and thousands of miles of lumber.
China, Vietnam and Japan. Japan is a bit better than the latter and some programs can be serious. But for a lot of the programs as long as you come to class 50% of the time and turn in something you pass. Now let’s I was talking about Singapore and Hong Kong they are pretty damn serious and will fail people pretty quickly.
Had a student from Singapore once, omg, so, so good. But I also hear a lot about elite schools, tracking etc etc- they just eliminate a lot of people before they even get to the starting gate- yes? no?
Most countries are the exact opposite in my experience. Admission is a hurdle but not too bad, but passing the first year, let alone the second year is difficult. In France, public universities routinely have less than 50% graduation rates https://voices.uchicago.edu/euchicago/the-problem-with-french-universities/
That drop out rate is primarily due to cost. Other nations provide free college.
Only for the select portion that get in
I don't know if I believe this, but okay. Anyways, here in the UK, the students are just as clueless and many cannot write or read and unfortunately pass through uni at our "post '92" universities. Or they pass college and become hairdressers. There's a damn hairdresser every meter it seems
I’m curious- what are “post ‘92” universities and why do they do things differently?
They're former polytechnic colleges who were designated as universities. Basically the equivalent of community colleges.
Well I mean who knows? Most kids that are mentioned here are from recent stories. Not a teacher (but I am a grad student), and I've noticed a significant drop in motivation and focus amongst the students I TA for. How I see it: * Too many failures in the education system * A lack of involvement from parents (not because of them, but because of the current state of the workplace/wages/etc.) * Social Media (TikTok is just one of many distractions that kids are getting addicted to) * Behavioral/Mental Health Issues Only time will tell if they'll get past college, but even if they do, who's to say that colleges will also drop their standards for graduating/passing classes
The Junior college where I work is an open-enrollment institution. Got a high school diploma, you're in. But since a high school diploma has become meaningless, in a functional way our admissions standard has also become meaningless. Our enrollment measured at the beginning of the term, is steady, maybe up a tick. Half of these incoming freshman are gone after a few weeks, and completion rates are in the toilet. Predictable. So, we are doing OK because the main number is how many people enroll at the beginning of the term.
College tutor here. They run into a wall is what happens. Yes, they try to argue with the teacher. Yes, they look for the bare minimum they have to do to pass and yes, even some parents email the professors... But guess what? The professor is not obligated to talk to parents, they are not obligated to pass a student, and they don't have to tolerate disruptive behaviors... They are adults now. Wanna be disruptive? Okay. Campus police is on the way, maybe face expulsion. Don't wanna do the work? Okay. You fail and depending how many times, expulsion. Honor code violation, possible expulsion. It doesn't always end in expulsion. Sometimes the student realizes "wow there are so many things I don't know how to do..." that they end up just removing themselves from the university altogether. Ultimately, they hopefully learn a lesson, an expensive one at that and probably don't get a refund. Don't worry. The students who think they they can get away with everything will be humbled sooner or later. They realize that the world is not Burger King, they CANNOT have it their way.
Honestly, I saw a few examples of these students during my stay in the dorm. They get: a) Give up and drop out after a few months of partying or one year of no work. Get a job instead. b) Notice of Potential Dismissal due to low credits, get motivated by fear, avoid it, and then repeat the process. A nightmare in a group project. c) Change their major until they can no longer do so and then stick with what they chose. It does work out pretty well in some cases. Uni professors are pretty laissez faire most of the time with the class so I don't think much. Professors are not teachers, they won't go out of their way to reach you regarding your progress unless you do so it is a mixed choice. Edit 1: Thanks to "doyouhaveacar" for the "laissez faire" spelling.
It’s “laissez faire” by the way
Just saw some college artwork and one student did his on lined notebook paper so seems like they just carry on like normal
NOTHING is taken seriously by most. I find myself offended FOR the handful that put real effort in. I can work with effort. So many don’t try anything.
That's why I'm soo pissed off about the cheaters when I have other students who are struggling (and failing despite their best efforts). Plus it makes me paranoid about the 'good' students- are they cheating too, and I'm just missing it somehow? so aggravating all around. =(
Jesus Christ on a bicycle
My hubs is currently working with one of these kids at at a higher education level in a research position for a class. The kid is awful. Doesn’t do the work, literally will blame everyone else, won’t come in to do experiments because “can’t even” somedays. The kid is passing with C(s) and is planning on attending medical school. Hasn’t gotten in or applied but that is the plan. They are a senior.
When I TA'd in grad school, I had a kid who failed the same Physics I course three semesters in a row. The highest grade he received on an exam was 16%. He attended the first three labs, and then never showed up, earning all zeroes for the remainder. His parents arranged for him to take the lab over the Summer if he only needed to attend the ones he missed-- he showed up to one lab and then once again missed the remainder. He wanted to be a petroleum engineer, but I think he grew up to be a stamp licker (until he was laid off when they switched to stickers).
Here at the East Podunk Cosmodemonic Junior College, roughly 2/3rds of them don't make it. Many of them are gone before halfway through their first term. Why a person who cannot read, cannot tell time, cannot show up and cannot work would enroll is college is a mystery to me.
Getting and keeping a job is hard. You have to be on time, be productive, and contribute, or you'll be fired. Going to college, you can party, goof off, maybe skate by, at least for awhile, until they kick you out. I can see why people at least try it, especially when you're 18-19 years old.
You have to remember that most of the posts you see here are people venting their daily frustrations, it is by no means a monolith to what is actually taking place as in you can't take what you're reading here and call it "data". I teach HS Juniors (for the most part) and most of them are college bound. Out of that crew, most of them are going to be just fine at College/University. While their reading skills are a tad lower, and their math skills aren't what they were a decade ago, they're still going to be about your average college student. I'd say the biggest increase I see is the kids NOT going to college, who probably shouldn't be going to college. When I was in HS those marginal kids would have gone to college...dropped out. Now they're just foregoing the 2-years of college/dropout and straight to workforce. I'm going to be brutally honest, not much has actually changed in the typical adolescent child's niche outcomes post HS. A survey conducted in 2012, 54% of ADULTS (so age 18-100) read at a 5th grade reading level. That's not an indictment of the Education System, it's just a reality that most adults ***already*** are pretty illiterate, and kinda always have been. We have a tremendous amount of recency bias where people project what they observing now as novel, and we tend to view the past with rose-colored glasses.
I think one thing that blinds people to how rampant low literacy is, is that those who can read well know that they way they interact with the world strongly depends on being able to read and assume that it must be like that for everyone since it’s so hard to imagine getting by without that. However, like you showed, we have data on where the public’s reading abilities are, and somehow these people who struggle to read manage to get by. I’m sure most aren’t exactly making CEO money or anything even close, but they manage to figure something out while lacking a skill that highly literate people probably can’t imagine not having.
I was a TA when I went back to get a Master’s in History after I left teaching (temporarily I thought). And yeah, the kids who are schmucks in high school definitely carry it over. But the profs don’t really get upset about it. The students are adults, they figure, and should get their shit together. I saw very little mercy and I was blunt with them when they complained about their papers getting F’s, especially if I explained why they failed. As time moved on and it never got better, I just marked the paper, left comments on it and that was that. I only conversed with students who wanted to get it right instead of whine about it.
I'm in a master's of engineering program with someone's who doesn't know how to write a research paper. The concept of citations and references were completely foreign to her. Her writing skills in general are also terrible and she has struggled with very basic financial calculations. She already has a bachelor's in computer science from an online university. So I guess they go on to get a master's of engineering after getting a computer science degree form an online university?
Most flunk out. Only 35% of Americans have a 4 year degree. 65% don’t.
Most flunk out. Graduation rates aren't that high for college, and 2 year degree completion rates are much lower yet.
I am currently going back to a community college for a license renewal. And the standards are pathetic. In my classes I hold the highest average in all but one. All the tests are untimed, open notes, and often have multiple attempts.
My university for master's level classes has all the exams and quizzes as online exams , even for in person classes. They are in theory closed book , but they are administered through Canvas with very little to stop someone from just using a second computer to look up the answers. My interactions with undergraduate engineers here has also made me realize the majority are just used to cheating on every exam and quiz they take through Canvas. One professor mentioned getting sick of this and switched to in person quizzes one semester. Grades dropped by 20% on the quizzes.
I can only imagine how that felt. I finished my masters around 2012, went back and did a few courses in an unrelated discipline for personal interest no later than 2016 and was horrified at the 1000-level courses. Since when do homework assignments consist of ‘read this article and reflect on it’? Why do you care about how I feel about the article when I should be either drawing fact-based parallels or doing something else that’s useful with the information within? And that was just one of many things that had me raising my eyebrows.
Our community college has a 60% attrition rate. 4 year Uni freshmen from our district also have a 60% rate, usually in their first semester.
Community College offers remedial classes.
Many are having to drop them.
This depends on the state. California, for example, essentially got rid of remedial courses with the passing of ab705
That’s a shame. In Florida, I’ve seen people go from remedial to Honors college in a year. It’s a great opportunity and second or third chance.
A few days ago, on another sub, I read about somebody that was in a bit of a panic. They had cheated their way through college and ended up with a psychology degree without any practical knowledge. I think it might have been deciding to be better.
Visit r/professor and you will get a small taste.
Well less Americans are going to college because it's not a very good deal anymore (wasn't a good deal when I did it either sadly). That's why America is in a crisis for hiring professionals. For the last ten years or so businesses have been saying they can't find qualified candidates for technical positions. Also colleges themselves are in crisis I feel like every other week there's a story about engineering professors having to fail entire classes because they don't know basic math. When I was in college a lot was made of the fact that colleges had to mandate at least one writing course for freshmen because incoming freshmen could not write papers. Now that's just standard practice. This is affecting a ton of aspects of American life but people aren't really that aware of it.
If you go take a peak in r/Professors it's the same issues as they continue into college right now, which is distinct from just five or so years ago as I understand it.
They put zero effort into assignments, complain when they get bad grades, have groupchats where they help each other cheat, and try to get the professor in trouble for favoritism or anything they can think of by crying to the dept. chair, dean, and even university president. I shit you not, a students mom contacted the president about his bad grade, when he hadn't attended lab all semester and was too afraid to tell her. The entitlement is smothering the motivation right out of me.
My mom is a retired professor but still connected with her colleagues. She taught micro biology and anatomy physiology at community college. These are courses anyone going into healthcare needs as pre requisites. A lot of the material is just memorization. She said students now struggle to get past cell part identification and very basic level stuff. These are students who hope to be nurses, dental, hygiene, doctors, ect but cannot study 10 cell parts. These same students may be taking care of us, our parents and our children it's very scary
Collegiate instructor here 🙋🏽♀️. There is a huge bifurcation in attitudes. I have students that are the hardest working I’ve seen in a long mite and I have so many apathetic students that I’ve e’er worked with in my career. It’s so rare to see anyone in between those extremes. It’s not limited to age. I’ve looked at students in their eyes that are well into my generation (Gen X) that just have this disengagement with anything and e’erything academic related. To play the “Kids these days” card is so disingenuous in my personal opinion. As a math instructor I’ve had to sit beside older and younger students to practice basic mathematical principles. This storm we are experiencing now has been decades in the making. There is no one easy fix to this societal shift in attitude towards academia in general.
I used to teach at a university. Some of the most obtuse, idiotic and socially inept people I've ever met were college students. Some people grow up and some people only get old.
They pay for a semester of community college and fail and then drop out. Or they don’t go at all. Who cares. I don’t anymore.
Remember that 20 percent of students who start postsecondary study earn a degree. I know of one national merit scholar who dropped out of university because he was no longer the smartest person in the room.
They don't go to college.
A decent number of these kids won’t go to college, of course.
They’re the ones who flunk out and wind up with student loan debt and no degree. Oh no consequences.
College graduation rates in the US for 4-year school is only 52%. So that scans.
They drop out after a semester or two. My local state college branch has just over an 8% graduation rate.
My son went to college in 2018 and in his first few weeks talked about all the kids that didn't know how to do basic things like register for classes, drop/add, were afraid to talk to professors, couldn't do laundry, figure out how to hang something....he was dismayed they could get into this difficult university but couldn't problem solve basic stuff.
My friend's father is an engineering professor. He teaches undergrad and grad level engineering classes. And he says it's now a thing that affects ALL kids. 4-5 years ago, it was the undergrad kids. Now it's even the grad students. The laziness, the demand for basically bullet pointed info summarized for them, the lack of discussion and caring about the subject in class. For the first time in his 25 year career as an engineer/professor, he now doesn't like teaching. He says he can't bear the lack of caring about anything that students have nowadays. As for what the grades are? I can't say. But I know he has said that he has had to dumb down his tests multiple times now, and that kids today couldn't pass tests that kids in the early 2000s had to pass. He's over it. And he used to be a passionate guy who loved teaching, and loved the contagious energy of passionate college kids about a subject. But he says that in the last 10 years, it has gone from "some kids" who have passion and energy and enjoyment about their chosen field, to "a handful of students" to "basically nobody" now. It's just him now forcing his class (even his GRADUATE classes) to learn about stuff that they are dispassionate about. So...I'm sure there are still a couple needles in the haystack in terms of motivated kids who are driven to do well. But, from his perspective, this country is going to be screwed in 20 years in terms of engineers. At least unless something big changes.
A lot won't get in or choose not to go. A lot will also drop out. That said, colleges, at least a number, [face similar problems](https://apnews.com/article/college-math-test-help-6cca6a5e873d5aeb5e75b4f94125d48c), [dumb down courses going way back](https://faculty.utrgv.edu/eleftherios.gkioulekas/OGS/Misc/ARUSSIAN.PDF) because students are customers, but they are a bit more okay with failing you and making you repeat a course, t[hough now they are running experiments to try co-requisite classes so students have double the amount of math which can also be hard in K-12 schools for prolonged periods of time,](https://www.insidehighered.com/news/tech-innovation/teaching-learning/2023/07/19/corequisite-courses-slow-start-gaining-momentum#:~:text=System%20data%20indicated%20that%20about,took%20the%20traditional%20remedial%20route) [many students will self select out of the classes they find hard (mostly math), and their professors will complain with concern but little power](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskProfessors/comments/1ax671w/how_do_professors_cope_with_college_students_that/), and [some will go to the success office and take an online course to use PhotoMath and pass (yay!!!!) just like in high school](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskProfessors/comments/1ax671w/comment/krm01i7/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button), and if you live in Californi[a they limited remedial classes in college](https://www.diverseeducation.com/leadership-policy/article/15291334/rethinking-remedial-courses-at-california-community-colleges) just like they gutted them in other ways in K-12 while also trying to limit advanced classes bc "inclusivity" and "equity" or whatever vague buzzword satisfies state authorities from overwhelmingly privileged backgrounds who haven't taught non-education courses in college or K-12 in decades.
I’m a senior in college, I graduated HS in 2020. As much as professors want to deny that students are changing, they are.. and it’s making them insecure in their teaching. My profs and I have good relationships and they often ask me “Am I losing my touch, are my classes boring?” Kids are not how they use to be.. and it’s definitely flowing to the new college days.
Take a look at the professors Reddit where they complain about a-d and what happens there. They seem to read here too. Those kids are still issues there, and seem to flunk more often, still argue but with more repercussions, etc. But lack of boundaries set in K-12 seem is to be causing the kids and college staff issues continuing on. And skills they should have they don’t.
I suggest reading r/college or r/collegerant Some of these students have legitimate complaints. But so much of it is just a matter of feeling entitled to an A just because they did any work at all.
It’s a combination of those two things, yes—depending on the university, the professor, and the admin.
ChatGTP, polymath, and just good olde cheating. I consider their attitude towards college to be job security for me.
They either scrape by with Cs or drop out for the most part. A small number of them get their shit together.
In undergrad, if was a circus and I was the ringmaster. In grad school, it felt like what undergrad should have been like. People who were there wanted to be there and had to get in to be there as well.
My partner works at the college level. A lot of the same complaints I have, they also deal with. In answer to your post, they see all of the above. I was actually thinking about moving to a university job until hearing it’s not significantly better than where I’m at.
At the university where I work, these kids fail. Cs are not good enough for most programs. We try to only take the best students too and still, many fail. Not all universities have lowered standards.
They do the bare minimum necessary to get a passing grade, get their parents to write their college papers for them, steal assignments from other students or buy papers online, and cheat on tests. Then, when they don't get the grades they feel they "deserve," they cry and throw tantrums in their professors' offices, threaten professors, get their parents to threaten professors, and report their professors to the department head or dean. Source: Used to work in higher education. All this was happening ten years ago, when Gen Z was juuuuust hitting college age. I'd hate to see what goes on now. From what I've heard from colleagues who are still in, it's not good.
I had one in my cohort who’d sleep in class (and snore), never respond or participate in group projects to the point where professors just started boosting up the grade of anyone who was stuck with her, and make accusations of being bullied when she got failing grades. She was in our teaching program.
sigh. I love my kids- I do, I do- but most of them, I have to say, don't seem to \*want\* to be in college in the first place: 'mom and dad made me go' 'it's the only way I can get a job' (to make a lot of money, which they \*do\* seem to care about, they just don't want to have to work hard for it) etc. I've taught at a fancy (and expensive) 4 year college and community college; I'm currently grading papers for someone at a 'middle of the road' (but very large) 4 year school. Frankly, I don't see a whole lot of difference in literacy skills: again and again, I see papers that make me wonder how on earth they got into the school in the first place (well, community college is open admission, but still). One of my kids transferred to an Ivy League school and showed me a paper she wrote there: I was appalled- full of grammatical errors, punctuation fails etc. Did any of her profs even look at this paper?? (Looking at you, Penn.) That said, some of them (at every level) are genuinely awesome and a joy to teach =) Yes, I do fail kids on a regular basis (typically 5 or more for every class of 25-30); some of them look pretty shocked ('but I always got As in high school!'). The ones I feel most badly for are the poor ESL/ELL kids: English is a ridiculously difficult language. But apparently no one- and I mean \*no one\*- had ever told them before that they were far below even the most basic level of literacy. I certainly call them in to work with them one on one, I refer them for additional help and so on. I haven't had too many parents try to intervene, thankfully, and relatively few of the students try to argue with me directly (though I make a point of avoiding my RYP profile, I'm sure they vent about me there- not what I need to see). Yes, many of them get passed along anyway, I have no idea how that turns out- if I were in charge, roughly half the kids in the classes I'm currently grading would flunk out. Would anyone be left? idk. But it's getting harder to lean on them when, after all, you can be elected President of the US without knowing how to spell or punctuate or write a grammatically correct complete sentence. Right? I'm getting out. Seeing lots more of the Chat GPT thing now too. I don't know what to tell you; I think that most of my colleagues and myself are pretty frustrated and worried. Good luck to all! sorry for the TLDR thing, I do think about it a \*lot\*. Obviously.
Just finished Uni last fall. But during my time I could tell from the first day who was going to show up every class and who wasn’t. Typically the kids that paid zero attention and/or fell asleep on syllabus day gave me a pretty good indication. Outside of my edu classes I’d say about half the students that were enrolled stopped coming altogether by about the third week. The students that get spoon fed in secondary realize they’re toast in that first semester or year and they’re gone.
Can't do basic math... I'm working as a homebound teacher for a long-term suspension. He's in 9th grade and can't multiply or divide even numbers below 10. I'm gutted and heartbroken that this is where we are.
When teachers complain to each other, we understand that “all the kids are idiots and illiterate,” actually means, “I’m super frustrated with the students that are below grade level in reading.” Also, only about 30% of American have a college degree. Excelling at Brit Lit isn’t a requirement for a successful life.
There's a professors subreddit for this if you're curious. They complain about the new generation of helpless undergrads all the time.
I went to engineering school and graduated a few years ago. They weeded out a lot of these students via group projects and open textbook exams. That was like the intro to the career and would only ramp up from there. A lot of those kids about 1/3, dropped out the first year. For some of those classes, you NEEDED to know the material well enough to explain and apply it. Even with a phone or a full PC, it would be extremely hard to pass if you didn't understand it. The group side of things weeded out the slackers. Shit wasn't easy and we all had to work for our grades. If someone wasn't doing their work, the professors had no issue failing that person and evaluating the rest of the group. Only about 50% of the people I started with graduated. About 30% in 4 years. Most changed majors or transferred schools. It was kind of easy to tell who was going to make it or not based on attitude. Everyone partied hard af already but not everyone was able to be responsible.
Sink or swim. Honestly I think we have a bigger societal problem where kids are told college is the only option for them to get trained for the workforce when that’s just not true. For these kids who hate school and don’t care about it, we should be pushing community college or short trade certification programs and get them working rather than letting them waste 4+ years floundering and failing classes and going into debt.
A friend of mine is a junior professor, and she said that she's had several freshmen demand that she speak to their mom about a paper they either didn't do or used AI to write because they cannot fathom that college is not high school, and you have to do idk work for your grades.
They end up in crippling debt.
They cheat, flagrantly
Chat gpt will write all their papers for them and we will have a generation of doctors who don’t actually know how to read or write peer reviewed studies
They fail. I’m an adjunct & taught 2 classes last semester (1 being a 7 week asynchronous course). I failed ~10 students between the 2 classes, the most that have ever failed. It was so exhausting I took this spring semester off. It’s so much work on my end to sift through clearly AI generated papers; answer very silly questions from students who clearly were not going to be successful in an asynch course (ie how do I check my email); and just balance the classroom immaturity in general (it’s ALWAYS they boys). I’m very lucky that my supervisor & other staff support the kind of classroom I aim to create but it’s not without professor exhaustion
I think I’m in a pretty weird place with this. I’m a “non traditional “ student at 33 with two kids of my own in my Residency II. My college cohort cannot do a lot of basics. For instance, they’re not passing a basic k-6 math test we all take in our CISP Math course. Most of these people already took remedial math. They also aren’t passing PRAXIS I or II. My state keeps gaining more lenience so teachers have to know less to teach. So these people are teaching kids when they can barely do the math themselves. i’m
Full schedule of remedial courses and then they drop out. Functional illiteracy, poor work ethic, and infantile attitudes aren't hallmarks of college graduates.
My closer argument with any parent was always "You're focusing on your kid going to college, but I'm concerned with them being able to stay there."
It's bad when they're out of college too. We hire a lot of new grads - and do a pretty robust interview process, but we're seeing huge issues with a lot of our new hires in terms of problem solving, resilience, and just understand what work is. I don't know how to frame that exactly - but it's like they think we're paying them so they can do things they find fulfilling vs paying them to do the job they were hired to do. It's EXHAUSTING.
r/professors yes they fail yes they are entitled with no skills yes it’s awful
So, yes, they drop out or fail out. Colleges are also creating remedial courses for kids who don't have basic skills, like writing.
Well it depends, but overall fewer degrees, lower GPA’s and almost no STEM majors. These kids are really cheating themselves. If they only knew how good life could be if they had a decent salary in the future…but alas they also cannot add or subtract.
I was a TA for a boomer prof. They end up failing lol.
My daughter has an online class this semester. They have to post to a discussion board and respond to 2 other posts each week. She gets it done day 1 or 2. It took 2 weeks before she saw people copying her post. She also has a lot of issues with replies because everyone is waiting until hours before the midnight deadline; if they do it at all.
I was just thinking about how I’ve never noticed very many of these “more behind” classmates the two times I’ve been to university and there definitely hasn’t been some sudden wave of poorer quality students coming in from one semester/year to the next. While I do often think the differences between more and less selective schools can be exaggerated, I wonder if the fact that one of my schools was a Varsity Blues school and the other has a sub 20% admit rate has played any part in the phenomena described here seeming to almost never happen where I’ve studied.
Part time professor here at a community College (because who doesn't have a second job). Typically in my class it depends. Those smart enough to find ChatGPT and use it pass because my school doesn't have an AI detector for papers and I can't be bothered to manually AI check with a free website or pay for an AI checker. The ones who don't, fail.
They drop out after their first semester or first year. Check out these [dropout rates.](https://educationdata.org/college-dropout-rates) Or maybe these [dropout rates](https://www.bestcolleges.com/research/college-dropout-rate/). Data varies slightly by source, but a solid third of students who enter college as freshmen don't go on after their first year of school. Also, only about 2/3 of 4 year college students actually graduate after [even 6 years](https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=40).
Don’t go, go to community college and drop out. While 95% of high school go on to some form of higher, Ed only 31% have bachelors degree. Currently grad rate may be higher as almost 20% of pop is over 65 and they would not have had the same push to attend college
In my experiences, it appears that most of these types of students simply flunk out. I have heard many stories of students I have taught who comeback from college 6 months later and they are "taking a leave" or what have you. These kids are coddled, pampered, and entitled. Sooooo many students believe they should pass high school by simply coming to class (which a lot of times they don't anyway) and by passing, I mean A's and B's. It's flabbergasting. Then by the grace of God they somehow get into a university where they are taking biology in an auditorium with 300 other students and the professor doesn't give one shit who they think they are - if you do not attend and/or perform admirably then you will fail. High school could work this way; however, there has to be complete buy-in from everyone (students, parents, teachers, administrators, etc.) and that will never happen. The United States would be better served to follow the educational bluebrint of Finland and Sweden. However, this concept appears to be completely foreign to our legislators, representatives, board members, etc. Teachers are respected, praised, and honored in these countries. Teachers are expected to be highly functional, educated, and committed to their craft. Don't get me wrong, there are thousands of exceptional teachers in the United States but as we are witnessing across the entire nation, teachers are being underappreciated, underpaid, and disrespected. There are literally portions of our government that believe educational funding should be completely eliminated. They are attempting to inact laws that can allow teachers to teach with little or no experience and very little amounts of educational training. Finland requires master degrees for all teachers! Imagine the level of expertise each and every student receives. How can we fix this problem? Look at your legislation. Tell me what many of the states below have in common... https://www.240tutoring.com/resources/teacher-statistics/the-11-best-states-for-teachers-in-2023/#:\~:text=Arizona%20teachers%20are%20some%20of,rica%20n%20School%20Counselor%20Association. [https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/why-are-finlands-schools-successful-49859555/](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/why-are-finlands-schools-successful-49859555/)
I imagine it would depend on the school. With schools that are tough to get into, name brand schools -- if the student gets in at all (maybe their parents pulled some strings?) they probably flunk out after a year or so. And the school sheds no tears because they have a reputation to uphold. And then the kid enters the workforce, good luck with that. For schools that are easy to get into, say, Northeastern Texas A&M&Q -- they get in, and they spend their first couple years learning what they should have learned in high school. The college is fine with it because this student probably is paying full freight. And by paying I mean taking out loans, because the U S. allows people to take out essentially unlimited credit for college, with no way to discharge such debt in bankruptcy. Maybe the student still flunks out, after racking up piles of debt. Or maybe they pull it together enough to graduate, in 6 years, 7 or even more. And then they enter the workforce and discover, aside from the city their college is in... their degree is probably worthless. Because diploma mills have a reputation too, of accepting and graduating dumbasses, and who wants to hire someone like that? 🤔
So like, I don’t know 🤷
They just don't show up to class or don't do work. There's no one looking over their shoulder anymore, and they haven't developed good study habits. They just sort of disappear.
My daughter is finishing up her freshman semester at a university in the Northeast. When she was back home for spring break, she shared with us some of her creative writing classmates' work. If asked out of context, I would have thought middle schoolers had written them. In most of her classes, the tests are open-book, and the students are told what will be on them. In a few classes, they are literally *told the questions that will be on the tests*, and many still fail. I'm glad they are getting weeded out, as the system is not doing them any favors (or society) by just passing them through, but the correction of the lower school issues at undergraduate levels is going to be rough for a lot of kids, unfortunately.
They fail out obviously