Cognitive Decline. Does This Mean Students Are Getting Stupider?
September 28, 2009
I read the article “Cognitive Decline of the University Population”. I liked the graphs: lines heading south. The explanation:
It should not be surprising that a shrinking percentage of college students can write well or do basic mathematics, let alone appreciate Proust or quantum mechanics. Increased years of education have not actually increased verbal abilities in the general population, which at least partially supports the signaling and sorting model of higher education (the primary value of credentials is that they reflect more or less invariant qualities such as IQ and Conscientiousness), as opposed to the model that higher education builds human capital.
Clear writing for sure. I think this means that students are following the magnetic pull of the norm. My recollection from the hollow in Kentucky is that Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville figured this out by considering the consequences of “middling values”.
Stephen Arnold, September 28, 2009
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