College Crunch

Over on US News, there is an article that talks about recent pushes to increase the transparency of success that college students receive through the use of standardized testing.

It makes entire sense that colleges do not want their success (or failure) rate in teaching students publicized because it would in fact highlight that some college records would be quite poor. By introducing standardized testing across the board, some colleges more likely than not, would see a massive decrease in college enrollment. Students upon choosing a school would factor in the college’s ability to “actually teach” students.

The problem facing both students and colleges alike seems to be that there exists a promoted culture in which “students learn today, forget tomorrow”.

Most students regardless of their intellect, will study for an exam the night before and consciously be okay with forgetting whatever was learnt prior to the exam. Emphasis is put on the short term gains of passing an exam or subject, with no emphasis put on how the knowledge acquired in a subject can actually benefit the student long term. I know many students who have remarked to me after their college career that they are fearful of getting a job because they wouldn’t know what to do. And these are students who not only graduated with a college education, but graduated with honors.

The fact that colleges attempt to hide their teaching abilities only seems to confirm this type of mentality whereby students learn to pass exams, and not pass to succeed in their respective future careers. By introducing a set of standardized testing all colleges will probably do more to emphasize practical learning, and many that want to be future Harvards, will have to change the focus of their courses. Further, high school students will want to go to colleges that actually teach for long term purposes as they’ll know full well that prospective employers will value their diplomas and degrees more highly than those received by students at “lesser schools”.

Until now, students shopping for a college couldn’t get answers to this most important question, “how much do students actually learn at this school?” That finally might change. A growing number of colleges are already publishing the results of some of these types of tests that indicate how well a student has learned during their entire time at a particular college.

The implementation of some of these testing methods, and the fact that some colleges are taking part in the process, highlights that some colleges are being more proactive about this than others, and that they do recognize the increasing need to demonstrate to future students their overall teaching capacity.

In the future, it seems that college and university students will have a better understanding of what college will suit their learning needs, as well as information on how schools have improved, or fallen from grace.