Why are so many college students failing to gain job skills before graduation? – The Washington Post

Why are so many college students failing to gain job skills before graduation? – The Washington Post.

I commented with my usual comment:

The answer is easy. (I am a former math professor. I taught at an “elite” school (Washington U. in St. Louis) and, before that, at a regional state school.)

Here is the answer (in 1980!) from the great sociologist David Riesman (followed by my own answer – which will show what Riesman’s general answer means in practice).

“..advantage can…be taken of [students] by unscrupulous instructors and institutions..the “wants” of students to which competing institutions, departments, and individual faculty members cater are quite different from the “needs” of students..”

Here is what this comment means in practice.

When I taught a critical math requirement for engineers at Wash. U., administrators tried hard to get me to stop teaching the material the way MIT does. Here is some of what they did.

I was told to teach it as a “cookbook” course so that we don’t have “problems”.   

That was from the math Chair, who later told me that the Math Department had just “wrested” a course from the Engineering School (read budget money) and wasn’t going to let Engineering take this one.

The next comment should make it clear that the way to “wrest” a course (and budget money) was to make it easy enough to make “consumers” happy, even if it cost them an education, as you will also see below.

An Engineering Dean of Student Academic Integrity, after being advised that students who cheated on homework did poorly on the exam, told me:

Don’t “discourage” them – “retention” is important.

An advanced engineering student tutor who took the “cookbook” course wrote:

“..I cannot do…many.. [MIT} problems ..and I received an A..” (This was written with pride, and as a “complaint” that my course wasn’t being taught right!) 

I did not change the course, but I paid for it (no big deal), but my students didn’t have to pay – they learned well (a big deal).

(The documented story, “A Tale Out of School”, is on my blog inside-higher-ed . )