Universities Weblog

Heading to college this fall and dread having to take Econ 101? If your destination is one of the 50 "best" institutions, you won't have to.

As a Washington Post piece points out, most of those top 50 colleges and universities receive poor grades for their general education curricula, according to a new report by the American Council of Trustees and alumni. That report examines the rhetoric and reality of "Gen Ed" programs and concludes that most undergraduates can escape college without taking basic skills courses (e.g. composition or math) or survey courses in literature, history and science. Instead, they can substitute specialty courses ("History of Comic Book Art") to meet distribution requirements.

Here's a bit from the report itself:

Despite widespread lip service to the importance of a general education, a new survey by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni finds that a solid core curriculum in higher education has gone the way of the dodo. At a time when most colleges endorse the importance of a general education—a set of courses required of all students—in fact, colleges have virtually abandoned a solid core curriculum in favor of a loose set of distribution requirements. As a consequence, college students are graduating without the basic knowledge that was once considered the hallmark of a liberal education.Why are so many universities being rotten to the core? Faculty don't want to teach survey courses; they want to teach their pet specialties. And institutions fear losing market share (student demand) should their requirements appear too stringent.

That said, if students want broad exposure to the liberal arts and sciences, they can fashion their own course of study to ensure it.

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