alt Hacker NewsI went to a state school. The quality varied wildly depending on the department. It was very eye opening in the general English/writing classes when encountering people who couldn't read or write above a 4th grade level. The difference between they're, their, and there was like a riddle to some of them. Of course many didn't make it more than a semester or two.
That's the big thing - the college might be dropping the first semester grades so they can squeeze a second semester of tuition out of kids.
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> That's the big thing - the college might be dropping the first semester grades so they can squeeze a second semester of tuition out of kids.
This seems most likely. If you think of college as yet another extractive business (and you can bet the administrators at colleges think this way), then students that drop out are simply cu$tomers you are failing to retain: Pure lost revenue.
> ... squeeze a second semester of tuition out of kids.
Propitiated, in many cases, by the unnoticed run-up of their student loan debt balance.
> The quality varied wildly depending on the department.
I feel like it has always been this way. I went to a small private university. The natural sciences and especially the pre-med students had their days fully packed, like the only time you could even have a moment to talk about anything was at the cafeteria during meals.
Then there was the business department. The college athletes apparently picked business as a major because you have to pick something. You couldn't guess what was their preferred minor and why... The overwhelming preferred minor was music because the buildings for department of business and music were adjacent.
Compare that to the pre meds who were always worried about getting a B and somehow "ruining their chances at med school".