So Many Stupid Kids Are Going to College, Marine Officers Are Actually Getting Dumber
22nd July 2015
A new study indicates that Marine Corps officers’ intelligence has consistently declined over a 35-year period, and researchers are placing the blame on the “democratization of college,” that is, an ever-expanding pool of college graduates.
Brookings Institution researchers Matthew F. Cancian and Michael W. Klein looked at General Classification Test (GCT) scores from 1980 to 2014, finding a steady decline, which is troubling since the GCT predicts success in the military.
Officer scores dropped by 8.8 points, moving from an average of 130.9 in 1980 to 122.1 in 2014.
Not good news.
July 23rd, 2015 at 09:33
Higher education is a commodity.
Many want it, based on the many studies that correlate a degree with higher earnings over one’s lifetime. (Let’s leave aside an exploration of the assumption that correlation=causation, which is always a potential pitfall.)
And where there’s demand, there will be suppliers, and it is in the interest of the suppliers to maximize “sales”, as any business would. Hence the proliferation of “equal access” programs and policies, and coincidentally (or is it?)the explosion of student-loan debt and the stretching of the number of years required to achieve a mis-named “four year” degree.
The result is that many students are “graduating” who wouldn’t even have been admitted in years past. Markets work even when you don’t want them to.
The solution, of course, is to raise the admissions standards for prospective officers. But that won’t happen.