Are Students Getting Better or Worse?

Spot Poll We asked 50 professors:

AS THE COLLEGE AIMS FOR A MORE DIVERSIFIED student body, many alumni wonder whether this diversity translates into better students. While several of the 18 professors who responded to our poll saw the increasing diversity as an improvement in itself, half of the responses clearly indicated that the student body is getting more capable academically. As one professor put it, "I see fewer and fewer of the truly problematic, under qualified, under motivated, under concerned students that I saw in my first four years."

"Students never can write a proper sentence," said another prof. But he qualified that statement by saying that students are "more highly motivated than any I've seen, and they're interested in pursuing intellectual questions in and out of class." Another professor said that "an increasing appreciation of and knowledge of other experiences makes today's student better than yesterday's. The small differences in scores are more than made up for by the increased awareness of a complex world."

Confident of the improvement, a professor said, "There's absolutely no question about this. I actually look forward to reading their papers now, which I didn't a few years ago."

The second most popular answer was that students have remained the same through the years. "Selective schools like Dartmouth do not feel the effects of major shifts in student preparedness as much as others," said one. "We still draw from the very top, and I do not feel that there has been a great change in that group."

Others expressed the opinion that while students may improve in some areas, they have gotten worse in others. As one professor noted, "Academically, the students are some of the best in the country. Socially, students are getting worse."