6 ms·

An education bubble? Data from the explosion of AP tests

24 points by robg 18y ago

dxjones 18y ago
Is the increase in students taking advance placement tests a "bubble" or "trend"? The article makes a good argument in favour a bubble. Others would argue it is a trend, ... since enrolment for bachelors degrees is up, and there is growth in graduate enrolment too. It is only a "bubble" if it is unsustainable and going to collapse. Do we really think there will a sudden and large decrease in college enrolment? Empty lecture rooms? Idle professors? I doubt it. It would be ok if fewer students took the AP test. If that's the only place there's a bubble, ... no big deal.
- byrneseyeview 18y ago
  He's measuring the education bubble by looking at AP scores. The way people talk about education now makes it sound like a bubble: people don't say "What is the minimum amount of schooling needed to make a contribution to society?" but instead say something more like "How can we increase the amount of schooling each person gets?" Which is fairly similar to what happens in lots of other bubbles -- we go from "What is the right price?" to "How do we get a higher price?"
  - ZachPruckowski 18y ago
    Another sign of a bubble is that a factor is ignored in the pursuit of something. Everything looks great until that factor (mortgage defaults, non-sustainability of business plans, systemic risk, etc.) rears its ugly head and pops the bubble. The focus on more schooling was originally based on the desire to allow people to be upwardly mobile economically. However, what is happening is that the current system is making a college degree a given for a middle-class job. You can no longer get a middle-class job through an apprenticeship or a trade school. You have to go to a 4-year college. As a result, economic (and social) mobility has been pinned entirely on "did you go to college".
- ZachPruckowski 18y ago
  This is an education bubble. It's an education bubble because the more people who go to college, the less valuable a Bachelor's degree is. To get the top jobs, you need to have gone to a top school, or you need to have a postgraduate degree. With the value of a Bachelor's degree declining as tuition rises dramatically, college will soon become "not worth it". At that point, one of several things will happen: 1) College simply becomes accepted as "mandatory education" in the same way that high school is now, and a college degree is seen as worth what a high school diploma is now. 2) More and more people swear off colleges for more useful "trade schools" that are cheaper than college and better prepare them for work in a specific sector. 3) We have a great education reorganization, where we push a lot of the "liberal arts education" burden back on high schools (and tighten diploma requirements). This restores the value of a college degree while making high school graduation actually mean something. I'm not an intellectual elitist. If this increase in AP tests and going to (and graduating from) college was because people were actually getting smarter, I'd be thrilled. But it seems to be the case that "more people going to college" is a result of our culture pushing people into college, which is actually bad for them. It's getting harder and harder to find a middle class job that doesn't involve 4+ years of college (and the attendant expenses and loans). The end result is people need 4 more years of education to get the same sorts (economically) of jobs people 40-50 years ago could get without college.
  - dxjones 18y ago
    It's not a bubble if it doesn't burst. I think it is a trend. As you point out, a college degree is the new high school diploma. (and the MSc is the new BSc). We are not going to step backwards on this. There will be no burst. Hence, it is not a bubble.
  - krschultz 18y ago
    #2 simply will not happen. The best of the best have no concern for what college costs because of scholarships. They will never be going anywhere but colleges because there is no reason to go a cheap school if you can go free to the college of your choice. The trade schools are then left picking from who is left, and no matter what they do their best will not match the colleges bests because of time and raw talent. Thus the trade school will never surpass colleges in reputation. They will not attract that top talent (positive feedback loop!) People with college degrees have a vested interested in keeping them valuable and so will always be biased towards the college degree making it even harder for trade schools. So with that landscape in front of them, middle of the road students will logically go to regular college instead of trade schools whenever possible so that they are not disadvantaged. These people actually get more value out of their degree than the best of the best. The best of the best would be able to work their way into jobs regardless of education, but the average person needs the credentials to boost them up. The only bubble that could burst are overly expensive private schools. You can go in-state to a public school for less than $30k a year including all living expenses. Anything beyond that would be in danger of losing ground to ever expanding public state schools. I think that will ultimately be the real solution - cheaper, larger, 4 year public schools and fewer people taking out loans for $50k a year private liberal arts colleges.
pie 18y ago
I balked at the idea that "the main determinant of doing well in AP classes is IQ," which I'm not so sure about, especially when conflated with the idea that IQ is also a measure of student intelligence. In my experience, AP classes are focused on test preparation, which I would argue is not so strictly bound to intelligence at all. Probably what we're seeing is an expression of the widespread American notion that every child is special and smarter than the other kids and is bound for greatness, and that success is to be achieved through excellence in traditional educational and career channels. Aspiration is one thing, but many parents are actually trying to force their children through the educational system to "become the next president" in some sense. We simply have a deeper well of more diverse test takers in the AP exams (i.e. more variety in preparedness), thus the trending in scores.
- screwperman 18y ago
  Here's a discussion on reddit on an Indian entrance examination: http://www.reddit.com/r/math/comments/8bxt9/an_indian_undergraduate_entrance_examination/ http://www.reddit.com/r/math/comments/8bxt9/an_indian_underg... The exam is more rigorous and broader in scope than the APs. It also has a far more punishing "grading curve" (a 1.8% admit rate). The general notion among Indians seems to be that preparation -- and only preparation -- matters. While I agree that not every American should aspire to be the next president, one should put things in a global perspective: it's only fair that water-deprived kids from Third World countries who spent their childhood cramming end up taking the jobs of the more fortunate who did not take a single simple AP exam. In an earlier post on HN, a highly upvoted comment went like "take every AP exam". That is a good idea, but it hardly ambitious at all, given that you are in the land of opportunity. Participating in olympiads and science fairs is far more worthwhile in every way.
jimbokun 18y ago
He certainly likes pejoratives. 4 uses of "dumb/dummies", 1 "stupid", 1 "losers". Makes it somewhat harder to pay attention to the data and arguments presented. Is the argument really strengthened by parenthetically adding "stupid" to clarify "ill-prepared"?
neovive 18y ago
I think the increase in AP exams comes down to basic economics. If each test only cost $86 these days and is the equivalent of 3-4 college credits (depending on the course), passing just one exam is a great savings to the student in both money and time. With tuition costs at even local community colleges ranging from $100-$200 per credit, taking a chance on an AP exam for $86 is a great deal. Students are likely just piling in as many AP classes as possible.
- teej 18y ago
  > Students are likely just piling in as many AP classes as possible. Motivated students don't even need to take the class. Adding the cost of a $20 (used) test prep book and a chance to fail, the price of an AP is -still- cheaper than Community College. Plus, if you're disadvantaged, I believe you can get a discount on the price. Economically, it just doesn't make sense to do anything but pile on the APs.
- ZachPruckowski 18y ago
  Schools also subsidize taking the tests, since high rates of AP enrollment have been billed as a metric to measure high schools. At my high school (2001-2005), kids in AP classes got to take the test for free, and also got their grade weighted (so a B+ in an AP was worth the same as an A).
- speek 18y ago
  As much as AP courses are cost efficient, they're not good enough. The caliber of a good freshman introductory course ranges from school from school, but on the whole they're much better and more interesting than APs. Then again, my argument only really works for people going to school to learn, not to specifically get a degree.
  - ZachPruckowski 18y ago
    Even if you're going to school for a degree, APs are frequently insufficient preparation. They're sufficient for "get rid of my liberal arts requirements", but if you plan on taking a higher level course because you AP'd out of the prerequisite, you could have problems. A lot of classes in college build on their prerequisites, and assume you know them cold. If your only calculus experience is the practice tests out of the AP book, even if you got a 5, multi-variable will kick your butt. If your only economics knowledge comes from a Barrons AP review book, you'll be behind in your banking class. Passing the test is necessary, but not sufficient, proof that you learned the material. If your AP test wasn't backed up by a hard class, plan on studying extra your first semester.
aneesh 18y ago
There's an important fact not mentioned in the article: schools and students often have incentives to take more AP exams. For example, I was in a school district where AP exams were free for students. And the schools often get special recognition based on the number of AP exams taken. Indeed, the oft-cited Newsweek high school ranking simply ranks schools by the number of AP & IB exams taken per capita; it doesn't matter what you score! (Citation: http://www.newsweek.com/id/39380 http://www.newsweek.com/id/39380). Clearly, students and schools have almost nothing to lose, and a lot to gain by taking the exams. Given this perverse set of incentives, the only thing that surprises me is that the number of AP exams taken isn't growing faster! (We're still at about 0.3 AP exams taken per HS junior/senior)
- speek 18y ago
  AP courses are terribly laid out. They don't have nearly enough flexibility that they should. That's why Honors courses are usually amazing. They're more challenging than "regular" classes, but they have the freedom to pursue more interesting topics within subjects. Also, people end up teaching for the test, which is not good because will end up only knowing certain, specific, useless things.
- ZachPruckowski 18y ago
  Not only did we (Loudoun Valley HS, #164 on that list, 2001-2005) offer free tests if you took the class, the class grades were weighted for AP classes. An A- in an AP class was worth an A+ in a regular class, and a B+ was worth an A (+0.7 on your GPA for the class). The elimination of a lot of non-AP honors classes increased AP tests taken even more. I was in 7 APs my senior year, simply because there were two tracks: AP and general. If you had been honors-track in Middle School and early High School, you were basically pushed into taking AP History (World and US), AP Government, and AP English.
sethg 18y ago
According to the statistics provided in the article, (a) the number of AP tests taken per capita is going up, and (b) the proportion of AP test-takers who get a 4 or 5 is remaining constant. So there are students who took the AP test and got college credit in 2008 and who, in 1988, wouldn't have even tried to take the test.
- ZachPruckowski 18y ago
  This is true - more people are getting 4s and 5s. However, AP grades are complex. It's mostly on a weighted bell curve, so you're grading against the other people taking the test (and it's also adjusted against previous tests). So a roughly constant percentage should be getting 4s and 5s. What we don't know is what accuracy is required to get a 4 or a 5, and how that has changed year-over-year. I know it fluctuates from test to test, such that I've got 5s on tests that I got every question right on, and 5s on tests I know I lost at least a 5th of the possible points on. What this article neither proves nor disproves is the bigger issue - of the people getting 4s and 5s, how many are actually prepared to skip an intro-level college class in the subject?
blurgestory 18y ago
Does it matter if I took the physics/cs/calc AP exams for fun? :)
mattmcknight 18y ago
The real education bubble is the number people willing to borrow nearly $200,000 for a BA (or PhD) in Anthropology that exceeds the number of positions available that require that degree at that price. I read an article yesterday that mentioned a detective with a PhD in Anthropology. [1] While it seems to be working for him, I just don't see it as economically efficient. If we look at the causes of this inefficiency and bubble, we see similar government incentives and payouts to those that drive up the price of houses and medical care. As far as the increase in AP goes, the real push behind that is the lack of curriculum standards in the US and the unfairness of the GPA system. If you have a class of students taking the AP exam where none of them get higher than a two, I would expect that someone in that class would still be getting an 'A'. There's nothing "bubble-like" about AP- it's simply fulfilling a gap in the educational system. [1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/09/AR2009050902458.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05...
- krschultz 18y ago
  I don't understand why you aren't getting more upvotes for this. AP exams are no indication of a bubble at all. I took as many AP exams as I thought I could pass - a bunch of them I didn't even take the class for I just bought a review book and passed them on my own. If you have a choice between 40-100 hours of hard studying, $30 for a review book, and $90 for the AP exam vs 4 months of work and $3,000 in tuiton what rational person would NOT take a bunch of AP exams? The thing the article misses is that the number of tests taken is not really correlated to the number of people taking tests. Maybe 20 years ago people only took what they were good at, I took a dozen AP exams in subjects I couldn't care less about becuase then I avoided taking those in college. Plenty of other people did the same. I am one of the people inflating the number of AP exams arbitrarily. That has nothing to do with me thinking a lot of people in college are not getting their money's worth in their education. The bubble is the cost of tuition vs the payoff afterwards.

24 points by robg 18y ago

Is the increase in students taking advance placement tests a "bubble" or "trend"? The article makes a good argument in favour a bubble. Others would argue it is a trend, ... since enrolment for bachelors degrees is up, and there is growth in graduate enrolment too. It is only a "bubble" if it is unsustainable and going to collapse. Do we really think there will a sudden and large decrease in college enrolment? Empty lecture rooms? Idle professors? I doubt it. It would be ok if fewer students took the AP test. If that's the only place there's a bubble, ... no big deal.

byrneseyeview 18y ago
He's measuring the education bubble by looking at AP scores. The way people talk about education now makes it sound like a bubble: people don't say "What is the minimum amount of schooling needed to make a contribution to society?" but instead say something more like "How can we increase the amount of schooling each person gets?" Which is fairly similar to what happens in lots of other bubbles -- we go from "What is the right price?" to "How do we get a higher price?"
- ZachPruckowski 18y ago
  Another sign of a bubble is that a factor is ignored in the pursuit of something. Everything looks great until that factor (mortgage defaults, non-sustainability of business plans, systemic risk, etc.) rears its ugly head and pops the bubble. The focus on more schooling was originally based on the desire to allow people to be upwardly mobile economically. However, what is happening is that the current system is making a college degree a given for a middle-class job. You can no longer get a middle-class job through an apprenticeship or a trade school. You have to go to a 4-year college. As a result, economic (and social) mobility has been pinned entirely on "did you go to college".
ZachPruckowski 18y ago
This is an education bubble. It's an education bubble because the more people who go to college, the less valuable a Bachelor's degree is. To get the top jobs, you need to have gone to a top school, or you need to have a postgraduate degree. With the value of a Bachelor's degree declining as tuition rises dramatically, college will soon become "not worth it". At that point, one of several things will happen: 1) College simply becomes accepted as "mandatory education" in the same way that high school is now, and a college degree is seen as worth what a high school diploma is now. 2) More and more people swear off colleges for more useful "trade schools" that are cheaper than college and better prepare them for work in a specific sector. 3) We have a great education reorganization, where we push a lot of the "liberal arts education" burden back on high schools (and tighten diploma requirements). This restores the value of a college degree while making high school graduation actually mean something. I'm not an intellectual elitist. If this increase in AP tests and going to (and graduating from) college was because people were actually getting smarter, I'd be thrilled. But it seems to be the case that "more people going to college" is a result of our culture pushing people into college, which is actually bad for them. It's getting harder and harder to find a middle class job that doesn't involve 4+ years of college (and the attendant expenses and loans). The end result is people need 4 more years of education to get the same sorts (economically) of jobs people 40-50 years ago could get without college.
- dxjones 18y ago
  It's not a bubble if it doesn't burst. I think it is a trend. As you point out, a college degree is the new high school diploma. (and the MSc is the new BSc). We are not going to step backwards on this. There will be no burst. Hence, it is not a bubble.
- krschultz 18y ago
  #2 simply will not happen. The best of the best have no concern for what college costs because of scholarships. They will never be going anywhere but colleges because there is no reason to go a cheap school if you can go free to the college of your choice. The trade schools are then left picking from who is left, and no matter what they do their best will not match the colleges bests because of time and raw talent. Thus the trade school will never surpass colleges in reputation. They will not attract that top talent (positive feedback loop!) People with college degrees have a vested interested in keeping them valuable and so will always be biased towards the college degree making it even harder for trade schools. So with that landscape in front of them, middle of the road students will logically go to regular college instead of trade schools whenever possible so that they are not disadvantaged. These people actually get more value out of their degree than the best of the best. The best of the best would be able to work their way into jobs regardless of education, but the average person needs the credentials to boost them up. The only bubble that could burst are overly expensive private schools. You can go in-state to a public school for less than $30k a year including all living expenses. Anything beyond that would be in danger of losing ground to ever expanding public state schools. I think that will ultimately be the real solution - cheaper, larger, 4 year public schools and fewer people taking out loans for $50k a year private liberal arts colleges.

pie 18y ago

I balked at the idea that "the main determinant of doing well in AP classes is IQ," which I'm not so sure about, especially when conflated with the idea that IQ is also a measure of student intelligence. In my experience, AP classes are focused on test preparation, which I would argue is not so strictly bound to intelligence at all. Probably what we're seeing is an expression of the widespread American notion that every child is special and smarter than the other kids and is bound for greatness, and that success is to be achieved through excellence in traditional educational and career channels. Aspiration is one thing, but many parents are actually trying to force their children through the educational system to "become the next president" in some sense. We simply have a deeper well of more diverse test takers in the AP exams (i.e. more variety in preparedness), thus the trending in scores.

screwperman 18y ago
Here's a discussion on reddit on an Indian entrance examination: http://www.reddit.com/r/math/comments/8bxt9/an_indian_undergraduate_entrance_examination/ http://www.reddit.com/r/math/comments/8bxt9/an_indian_underg... The exam is more rigorous and broader in scope than the APs. It also has a far more punishing "grading curve" (a 1.8% admit rate). The general notion among Indians seems to be that preparation -- and only preparation -- matters. While I agree that not every American should aspire to be the next president, one should put things in a global perspective: it's only fair that water-deprived kids from Third World countries who spent their childhood cramming end up taking the jobs of the more fortunate who did not take a single simple AP exam. In an earlier post on HN, a highly upvoted comment went like "take every AP exam". That is a good idea, but it hardly ambitious at all, given that you are in the land of opportunity. Participating in olympiads and science fairs is far more worthwhile in every way.

jimbokun 18y ago

He certainly likes pejoratives. 4 uses of "dumb/dummies", 1 "stupid", 1 "losers". Makes it somewhat harder to pay attention to the data and arguments presented. Is the argument really strengthened by parenthetically adding "stupid" to clarify "ill-prepared"?

neovive 18y ago

I think the increase in AP exams comes down to basic economics. If each test only cost $86 these days and is the equivalent of 3-4 college credits (depending on the course), passing just one exam is a great savings to the student in both money and time. With tuition costs at even local community colleges ranging from $100-$200 per credit, taking a chance on an AP exam for $86 is a great deal. Students are likely just piling in as many AP classes as possible.

teej 18y ago
> Students are likely just piling in as many AP classes as possible. Motivated students don't even need to take the class. Adding the cost of a $20 (used) test prep book and a chance to fail, the price of an AP is -still- cheaper than Community College. Plus, if you're disadvantaged, I believe you can get a discount on the price. Economically, it just doesn't make sense to do anything but pile on the APs.
ZachPruckowski 18y ago
Schools also subsidize taking the tests, since high rates of AP enrollment have been billed as a metric to measure high schools. At my high school (2001-2005), kids in AP classes got to take the test for free, and also got their grade weighted (so a B+ in an AP was worth the same as an A).
speek 18y ago
As much as AP courses are cost efficient, they're not good enough. The caliber of a good freshman introductory course ranges from school from school, but on the whole they're much better and more interesting than APs. Then again, my argument only really works for people going to school to learn, not to specifically get a degree.
- ZachPruckowski 18y ago
  Even if you're going to school for a degree, APs are frequently insufficient preparation. They're sufficient for "get rid of my liberal arts requirements", but if you plan on taking a higher level course because you AP'd out of the prerequisite, you could have problems. A lot of classes in college build on their prerequisites, and assume you know them cold. If your only calculus experience is the practice tests out of the AP book, even if you got a 5, multi-variable will kick your butt. If your only economics knowledge comes from a Barrons AP review book, you'll be behind in your banking class. Passing the test is necessary, but not sufficient, proof that you learned the material. If your AP test wasn't backed up by a hard class, plan on studying extra your first semester.

aneesh 18y ago

There's an important fact not mentioned in the article: schools and students often have incentives to take more AP exams. For example, I was in a school district where AP exams were free for students. And the schools often get special recognition based on the number of AP exams taken. Indeed, the oft-cited Newsweek high school ranking simply ranks schools by the number of AP & IB exams taken per capita; it doesn't matter what you score! (Citation: http://www.newsweek.com/id/39380 http://www.newsweek.com/id/39380). Clearly, students and schools have almost nothing to lose, and a lot to gain by taking the exams. Given this perverse set of incentives, the only thing that surprises me is that the number of AP exams taken isn't growing faster! (We're still at about 0.3 AP exams taken per HS junior/senior)

speek 18y ago
AP courses are terribly laid out. They don't have nearly enough flexibility that they should. That's why Honors courses are usually amazing. They're more challenging than "regular" classes, but they have the freedom to pursue more interesting topics within subjects. Also, people end up teaching for the test, which is not good because will end up only knowing certain, specific, useless things.
ZachPruckowski 18y ago
Not only did we (Loudoun Valley HS, #164 on that list, 2001-2005) offer free tests if you took the class, the class grades were weighted for AP classes. An A- in an AP class was worth an A+ in a regular class, and a B+ was worth an A (+0.7 on your GPA for the class). The elimination of a lot of non-AP honors classes increased AP tests taken even more. I was in 7 APs my senior year, simply because there were two tracks: AP and general. If you had been honors-track in Middle School and early High School, you were basically pushed into taking AP History (World and US), AP Government, and AP English.

sethg 18y ago

According to the statistics provided in the article, (a) the number of AP tests taken per capita is going up, and (b) the proportion of AP test-takers who get a 4 or 5 is remaining constant. So there are students who took the AP test and got college credit in 2008 and who, in 1988, wouldn't have even tried to take the test.

ZachPruckowski 18y ago
This is true - more people are getting 4s and 5s. However, AP grades are complex. It's mostly on a weighted bell curve, so you're grading against the other people taking the test (and it's also adjusted against previous tests). So a roughly constant percentage should be getting 4s and 5s. What we don't know is what accuracy is required to get a 4 or a 5, and how that has changed year-over-year. I know it fluctuates from test to test, such that I've got 5s on tests that I got every question right on, and 5s on tests I know I lost at least a 5th of the possible points on. What this article neither proves nor disproves is the bigger issue - of the people getting 4s and 5s, how many are actually prepared to skip an intro-level college class in the subject?

blurgestory 18y ago

Does it matter if I took the physics/cs/calc AP exams for fun? :)

mattmcknight 18y ago

The real education bubble is the number people willing to borrow nearly $200,000 for a BA (or PhD) in Anthropology that exceeds the number of positions available that require that degree at that price. I read an article yesterday that mentioned a detective with a PhD in Anthropology. [1] While it seems to be working for him, I just don't see it as economically efficient. If we look at the causes of this inefficiency and bubble, we see similar government incentives and payouts to those that drive up the price of houses and medical care. As far as the increase in AP goes, the real push behind that is the lack of curriculum standards in the US and the unfairness of the GPA system. If you have a class of students taking the AP exam where none of them get higher than a two, I would expect that someone in that class would still be getting an 'A'. There's nothing "bubble-like" about AP- it's simply fulfilling a gap in the educational system. [1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/09/AR2009050902458.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05...

krschultz 18y ago
I don't understand why you aren't getting more upvotes for this. AP exams are no indication of a bubble at all. I took as many AP exams as I thought I could pass - a bunch of them I didn't even take the class for I just bought a review book and passed them on my own. If you have a choice between 40-100 hours of hard studying, $30 for a review book, and $90 for the AP exam vs 4 months of work and $3,000 in tuiton what rational person would NOT take a bunch of AP exams? The thing the article misses is that the number of tests taken is not really correlated to the number of people taking tests. Maybe 20 years ago people only took what they were good at, I took a dozen AP exams in subjects I couldn't care less about becuase then I avoided taking those in college. Plenty of other people did the same. I am one of the people inflating the number of AP exams arbitrarily. That has nothing to do with me thinking a lot of people in college are not getting their money's worth in their education. The bubble is the cost of tuition vs the payoff afterwards.