Two professors spend endless hours outside classroom researching and writing book.

These same professors proceed to claim undergraduate students aren't learning much in the classroom.

Now, I'm no Stephen Hawking, but those two statements might have something to do with one another.

According to a website called insidehighered.com (as opposed to outside higher ed, which possibly talks about lawn care maintenance), a newly released book called Academically Adrift performed a study on 2,300 undergraduate students and found some statistics that would make any parent's heart soar with pride:

1.) 45% of students didn't show any improvement on learning during their first two years of college.
2.) 35% of students continued mailing it in for the following two years as well--showing that, indeed, Animal House wasn't a fictional movie at all, but a stunning documentary instead.

Any other nuggets from the book?

1.) Studying alone leads to gaining more knowledge than studying in groups.
2.) Students in classes that require more out of you (reading 40 pages a week as opposed to 20 pages) tend to learn more.
3.) Fraternities and sororities tend not to be a haven for intellectual accomplishment. [No. Way.]
4.) Students in liberal arts fields tend to acquire more knowledge than those majoring in business, education, social work, or communications.

More or less, if you've been an observant college student at any point in your life, these facts shouldn't be a surprise. You mean frat houses aren't turning out the next Thomas Edison? Wha-wha-what??? Studying in groups leads to people just socializing and not studying? Impossible!

These professors also argue that college social activities are a waste of time at acquiring knowledge. Generally, they declare students should only be doing classwork 24/7. Everything else isn't teaching the student anything at all.

Which is good to know. You wouldn't want a student to emerge from college knowing how to interact with anyone. Good social skills never got anyone anywhere in life. Except, of course, the last three presidents of the United States, one of whom was a C student. But what parent wants their child to grow up to become president? Pssh.



Okay, yes, the book seems to make some good points about colleges and universities only wanting warm bodies in the classrooms to make a buck, and that education itself has become a secondary concern to campus activities that generate income. But the writers of the book aren't promoting those issues up front. They're promoting fun facts about students not learning anything in the classroom--fun facts that just happen to be of the "Well, duh..." variety for anyone who has roamed a college campus in the last 100 years.