I'm with stupid

I'm kind of an arrogant jerk, so you can imagine how I felt when I saw a study in Newsweek that said that three out of four undergraduates are smarter than I am. I mean, come on!\nThe nonprofit Intercollegiate Studies Institute set out to determine how effective institutions of higher education are at preparing the next generation of civic leaders and informed citizens. The study of 14,000 students at 50 randomly selected colleges from across the country asked undergraduate students to answer 60 questions on "government, American history, economics and international affairs," said Mike Ratliff, a senior vice president of the ISI said.\nApparently we college students didn't do so well, and the older we grew, the dumber we dun got. Incoming freshman averaged a solid "F" of 51.7 percent, prompting testers to question just how they got into college to begin with. Now you might think. "Oh, well, they're freshmen. They're all idiots; what did you expect?" And you'd be right; most of them are. Unfortunately, you upperclassmen didn't fare so well either. Seniors performed only 1.5 percent better than their underclassman counterparts. \nThe study's organizers point to a phenomenon called "negative learning." Basically, if you don't refresh a subject regularly, you forget it. In my case, it's math. God willing, I'll never have to calculate derivatives for the rest of my life because I can't remember how. Similarly, science and math majors will attest to selectively unlearning the state capitals and who serves as president of the Senate. \nMoreover, "negative learning" will be the downfall of this nation. The testers worry that a civic crisis is looming, college curricula have gone soft and the next generation is entirely unprepared to run a country. \nHooey and nonsense!\nFirst, negative learning implies freshman knew something when they left high school, which clearly isn't the case. But more importantly, college has gotten easier year after year. On the contrary, courses have gotten more intense. There's more to know now than ever before -- it would be absurd to ask any one person to know it all. The very reason human beings have done so well historically is by dividing society's tasks among themselves. No one can do everything, but everyone can do something.\nThe testers at ISI are asking for the impossible: for every student to be fully educated in their field of choice, as well as political science. Sure, it would be great if students had time to devote to other subjects as well, but these days they don't even need to. With the advent of quick and easy mass communication, all knowledge is digital, searchable and accessible.\nUniversities, professors and students have rightly concluded that medical doctors need not be concerned with butter and guns any more than I need to be concerned with gastrointestinal surgery or the rash under my arm. Leave biology to the doctors and government to the political scientists.