Higher Education Just Gives Up

Why do universities insist on lowering standards?  Why not help students meet the standards, or at the very least, admit only those students who meet current entrance standards?

If you don't think that a good liberal arts education includes math, just say so and get rid of the requirement.  Be up front about it.  If you think a university education should be more than job training and seat time, then stories like this are more than disheartening:

In North Carolina, 26 percent of UNC system students earned a “D,” “F,” or “W” (a withdrawal) in mathematics and statistics courses between fall 2015 and spring 2018.

But instead of investigating ways to improve math education, North Carolina university leaders have decided to create alternate “pathways” for students who are less math-minded. According to UNC administrators, gateway and entry-level math courses—like college algebra—are “stumbling blocks” for too many students.

To get more students through entry-level math classes, in early 2018, the UNC system established the UNC System Math Pathways Task Force, a system-wide initiative to change general education math requirements to make them more “applicable and equitable.”

I'd rather have no standard at all.  At least that would be honest.

But, like so many of the initiatives the academic staff in the system office push forward, the Math Pathways task force’s recommendations are a de facto lowering of standards.

Of course, UNC’s academic staff don’t see the proposed changes as a lowering of standards. They argue that classes like college algebra simply don’t “align” with many students’ career goals. Why, for example, should drama or history students have to grapple with something as “irrelevant” as algebra?...

But taking a close look at the task force’s source of inspiration raises a serious question: Will academic rigor be sacrificed for the sake of implementing a more “responsive curriculum?"...

Policymakers at UT-Austin determined that “contemporary math” is more relevant to liberal arts students than college algebra.  A cursory glance between the two courses’ assigned textbooks and course descriptions, however, suggests that they are not equal in rigor.

Unlike the college algebra course, the “quantitative” reasoning course has fewer clearly defined learning objectives and the content is largely determined by the instructor. Below is a side by side comparison of the courses, as described in UT-Austin’s Undergraduate Course Catalog.

Math 1314: College Algebra

Textbook: “College Algebra” by John Durbin

Covered subjects include:

• Brief review of elementary algebra
• Linear, quadratic, exponential, and logarithmic functions
• Polynomials
• Systems of linear equations
• Applications

Math 1332: Introduction to Mathematics (for liberal arts students)

Textbook: “The Heart of Mathematics: An invitation to effective thinking”

Covered subjects include:

• Number theory and probability
• Additional topics are chosen by the instructor

With chapter names such as “Fun and Games,” “Geometric Gems,” and “Taming Uncertainty,” most students likely would be thrilled to opt for a course based on the “Heart of Mathematics” instead of a tedious and confounding college algebra class.

In short, UT’s math course for liberal arts students seems geared toward giving students a taste of engaging—but superficial—pop-math concepts without making them endure unimaginative formulas and equations.

And given the fact that much of the course content is determined by individual instructors, there is likely a widespread lack of uniformity in what students learn. Nevertheless, the UNC system is following in UT’s footsteps...

It shouldn’t be hard, however, to see why leaving the content and learning objectives of a math course up to the “needs” of a given student population or on the “values” of each institution is extremely imprudent. What if a given student population, on average, “needs” easier math classes in order to not dropout? What if an institution “values” churning out degrees more than it values rigorously forming students’ minds?

It seems that's what is happening already.

Here's the real problem:

As a result, instead of looking at poor grades and high fail rates as evidence that a student might not be ready for college-level work, administrators conclude that the fault lies in the classes themselves, not in students’ academic ability. But such a premise is absurd. The administrators are clearly refusing to admit that students are likely failing college algebra because they are unable to do university-level math, not because it doesn’t “fit” with their career goals.

And here's why it's a problem:

While it’s natural for students to succumb to utilitarian impulses and want to study material that is directly related to their career interests, a liberal arts education is not just about skills training. Liberal arts students don’t just study things because they are “useful,” they study because it is intrinsically good to pursue the truth and to gain knowledge.

If students are not interested in this kind of education and seek only to gain skills for the job market, perhaps they would be better suited to attend a community college or a trade school.

Agreed.

Getting rid of standardized testing in the admissions process creates exactly the same problem.