Am I Smart Enough for College?

When I was a teenager, well more than half a century ago, I wondered whether I was smart enough for college.  My parents expected me to get a higher education, but I was unsure of my ability to cope with extremely demanding studies.

In fact, during my freshman year, when I took courses in calculus and mechanics, I did not do well.  I still remember, with trepidation, the nine books I was assigned to read for a course in political science.  Where was I going to find the time to complete so many tomes?

Nowadays, of course, few professors would dare require this sort of workload. They know that if they did, few of their students would peruse these books.  Actually, in a growing number of instances, learners don’t deign to buy them. They expect to get by with what they hear in the classes they attend.

The fact is that a college education is currently regarded as an entitlement.  Prospective students don’t ask if they are smart enough for college; they assume everyone is.  To even contemplate excluding them is regarded as a violation of social justice.  (And, oh by the way, they want their education to be free.)

Nonetheless, the only way to accommodate everyone in our universities is to dumb down the curriculum.  Standards must be lowered if less gifted scholars are to to pass required courses. The tendency is therefore toward mediocrity.  Fewer books are obligatory, most course papers are shortened, and challenging materials are eliminated.

Just how far the dumbing down process has proceeded is on display at Kennesaw State University.  It now boasts what is called an Academy of Inclusive Learning and Social Growth.  The idea is to stretch the boundaries of advanced learning as far as possible.

Believe it or not, this includes people with IQ’s significantly lower than normal.  Obviously, demanding good high school grades or high scores on college entrance exams would not achieve this.  These barriers would keep far too many people out.

The Academy of Inclusiveness therefore asks that applicants have a third grade reading level.  It doesn’t require this but describes it as “preferred.”  In other words, individuals with less than borderline IQ’s can qualify for admission.

There is a caveat however.  Should these students succeed in their studies, they will not obtain a Bachelor’s degree.  They will only be awarded a “certificate” attesting to the successful completion of a limited curriculum.  Still, they can boast of having a college credential.

Where this gets tricky is in the classroom.  You see, the aim is not merely to provide a program that suits the intellectually disabled, but to incorporate them into classes where they sit side by side with smarter students.  To do anything other than this is considered stigmatizing.  It would underline that they are not as talented as their peers.

So here is the rub—which I learned from a colleague who teaches these non-traditional pupils.  These folks don’t absorb materials at the same rate as others.  They are slower and thus require more time for detailed explanations.  Even so, what is taught must be abridged.

Where, accordingly, does this leave the higher functioning students? They are perforce provided an inferior education.  Not only must their professors reduce the quality of what is taught, but the classroom is likely to be a more boring place.  How could it be otherwise when simplifications abound?

The reality is that we have gone beyond another tipping point.  Instead of aspiring to mediocrity, we are aiming at something lower.  The objective is merely to get by.  As long as enough students graduate with what purports to be college degree, the target of our new morality will have been achieved.

Is this where we want to go?  Does “social justice,” where everyone is totally equal, entail society-wide incompetence?  If we keep on inventing programs that discourage challenging studies, will we be left with insufficient numbers of technical experts?

I submit that in a mass techno-commercial society, such as our own, this would prove fatal.  Doctors would not know how to provide quality care, engineers could not design safe bridges, and police officers could not distinguish lawful from unlawful arrests.

Worse yet, our democracy would crumble.  With hundreds of millions of voters too dim to select their leaders wisely, demagoguery would follow.  Come to think of it, we have already moved a long way in this direction.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University