I don't claim to have much more context. But in my college days, I decided that there was an effect, which I thought of as foreshortening. Professors rememberi

I don't claim to have much more context. But in my college days, I decided that there was an effect, which I thought of as foreshortening. Professors remembering their own college days naturally remember their peer group, which is to say people similar to those who would go on to be professors. Professors evaluate the present by their students, who are from a much wider range of interests and ability. Having said that, I have heard and read credible claims made against my generation (in college in the mid-1970s). You could look at John Lukacs's memoir Confessions of an Original Sinner, chapter "Teaching", on the need he found to reduce reading lists over the years. I suspect that the high school class of 2017 will arrive at college better prepared than my class was, at least in the areas of math, science, and foreign languages.