College: the party years

College is not for everyone.

That is apparent when looking at national college dropout rates. Only 53 percent of students who enroll into a postsecondary program graduate with a bachelor’s degree. Rising tuition costs are a cause of students dropping out, with the average college student’s debt postgraduation at roughly $24,000.

However, a lack of motivation or need to earn a bachelor’s degree may be the more shocking development in some student mentalities today.

In a fascinating new book, “Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses,” authors Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa examine the growing graduating classes and their lack of critical thinking skills.

What do undergraduates learn at a four-year institution? That answer increasingly appears to be “not much” among scholars and statistics. Educators are pressing that the biggest thing colleges should be producing are students that competently “think critically and intuitively.”

Bob Herbert from the New York Times stated, “Students are hitting the books less and partying more. Easier courses and easier majors have become more and more popular. Perhaps more now than ever, the point of the college experience is to have a good time and walk away with a valuable credential after putting in the least effort
possible.”

I’m sure if you asked a group of students here at IU if they value their social experiences more than what they’re learning in their classes, having a good time and getting by with their grades will likely outweigh having a tame college experience in order to focus more on developing their “intellectual skills.”

The reasoning behind this is that a lot of students coming into college already have comfortable and/or content lives. There is less of a need for students to work hard when they basically have the essentials to survive and do what they want, and most are often supported by Mommy and Daddy.

Just getting by in order to get a diploma is better than not going to college at all — which many young people are exceedingly OK with as well. You can lead a healthy, satisfying life in today’s society without having a college degree.

Yet you would be hard-pressed to find someone who doesn’t want a good, high-paying job, which is why there is an increase in students attending college.

But students aren’t necessarily concerned with how their “critical thinking” skills are after graduation; they are more concerned with the piece of paper that tells them they have completed college and now they can go off and make more money.

Academic rigor is no longer as important to today’s student body. College is, rather, more about the life experiences, the independence, the social life and parties: the good times.

When I look back at my own priorities for college, it was to do well, if not great, at attaining a higher way of thinking with these so-called “intellectual skills” that college promised to provide.

But I didn’t have to go to college to be a writer. Sure, it helps having all those craft classes, but I could have just as easily published without having a degree in English. However, it was having the college experience, that big campus life and the creative environment it inspires, that sealed the deal for me to attend a university.

Let’s face it: Having an English degree doesn’t quite spell out financial security, and right now, as graduation nears, the daunting student loans I owe back to the University make me wish I would have majored in business or something more practical. But I don’t regret the classes I picked or major I chose.

In the end, having college debt is the best debt to have, in that I had the big-college experience I wanted, accomplished plenty of critical thinking and still had a good time — with, of course, a few credentials to toss around when it comes time to fill out job applications.  


E-mail: mfiandt@indiana.edu