Does A College Education Prepare You For Life After School?

11:45

February 17, 2011

How much did you learn in college?

A controversial book by scholars Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa claims that current college students are not learning the critical thinking skills needed to compete in the global economy. And that's not all they found. Other key findings of the study:

In a typical semester, nearly a third of students did not take a course with more than 40 pages of reading a week. Half did not take a course with more than 20 pages of writing.
Students spend less than one-fifth of their time each week in class or studying.
More than a third of students say they spend five hours or less studying alone a week.

We discuss why some college students aren't getting the education they need — and pay for — and what needs to be done to bring about change.

Guests:

Richard Arum, professor of Sociology and Education, New York University; program director of Education Research, Social Science Research Council (SSRC)
Tyler Rosenbaum, editorial page editor, Brown (University) Herald; senior, Brown University

More:

Chronicle of Higher Education: New Book Lays Failure to Learn on Colleges' Doorsteps
Brown Daily Herald: Editorial: Does college actually teach us anything?

This segment aired on February 17, 2011.