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Universities are responding by increasing the range of people they admit. If you consider universities farmers growing a crop of students that the government pa
by renewiltord 1y ago
Universities are responding by increasing the range of people they admit. If you consider universities farmers growing a crop of students that the government pays for, you'll see things play out like this.
You think to yourself "why would they admit people with really low scores and then inflate grades? That doesn't seem like educating people" but the answer is that they're responding to a crop with shrinking yield by expanding what they're willing to farm.
Hence all those bogus subjects and stuff which people are getting degrees in.
- terminalshort 1y agoClassic case of short term vs long term incentives. Dumbing down the schools results in both an increase in enrollment due to the increase in eligible candidates and a decrease in enrollment due to decreasing the value of the credential. But the former is instant, and the latter takes a long time to develop as it takes quite a while for the reputation to catch up with reality on the ground. So the university system has spent the last several decades basically consuming its most valuable asset (exclusivity) for short term growth. And it worked. For a while, at least. But now the long term effects are catching up with them and it has become apparent that the strategy is actually a doom loop: lower standards to raise enrollment -> reduce value of credential -> less students enroll -> lower standards to raise enrollment