George Leef’s latest Forbes column focuses attention on the decline of the value of the college “core” curriculum.
At a great majority of schools, the core curriculum long ago gave way to a “distribution requirements” system under which students satisfy their general education requirements by choosing a course or two from several broad categories such as mathematics and social sciences.
In their promotional materials, colleges usually pay lip service to the ideal of an education that is both broad and deep, leaving students with a strong foundation for life. The trouble is that at many schools, the curriculum has become so unwieldy that it is possible for students to graduate without ever taking any of the courses that we would formerly have regarded as pillars of a college education.
The American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) has been studying the general education requirements at numerous colleges and universities for years and its What Will They Learn? report reveals that very few have curricular requirements that come close to ensuring that their students receive a solid general education.
In ACTA’s analysis, colleges ought to cover these seven areas in their general education requirements: English composition, literature, foreign language, economics, college-level mathematics, and natural or physical science. Schools whose core or general education requirements included six or seven receive A grades; those that covered four or five received a B; those covering only three received a C; those covering only two received a D; and those covering one or none of those subjects received an F.
The results: Just 2 percent of the schools studied merited an A, 36 percent a B, 31 percent a C, 23 percent a D, and 8 percent an F.
This general decline in the core curriculum serves as one reason for George’s frequent assertion that college has been oversold.