(This is a second comment on this article. The previous one is here.)
This information is sadly no surprise to me.
In the 80’s I was a math professor at a regional state school. What I saw there was shocking and disturbing. (I tried to change it, but to no avail, and with much damage to myself and my family.)
Here is just some of what I saw.
* a math professor who told me that, after 5 years of teaching an intro course, she could finally always tell when the homework was wrong – but wasn’t always able to find out why.
* a statistics professor who confused the most important theorem in statistics with a very simple fact.
I later understood how I could see all of this – without me being crazy.
Major universities, from the sixties to this day, have unscrupulous professors, who are willing to accept big grants to “generate” American PhDs in math. (Today it is to get “English speaking” professors; yesterday, it was to catch the Russians.) Those unscrupulous professors will grant a PhD to almost anyone. Those PhD’s go on to be “professors”. That is what happens.
(Further explanations and examples are on my blog inside-higher-ed .)
Sadly, students at this university were willing to work hard and learn. Here is one personal example.
A student took calculus from me. She sat in front and stared as I talked. She also failed. The next semester she was back. I was surprised since I was a demanding teacher and she had other choices. She made and A. She went on to a successful engineering job.
Though her case may be extreme, she was not alone in seriously wanting to learn. Robbing them of their education is outrageous.
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