After College, What?

That’s the question I look into in this week’s Pope Center Clarion Call. We know that large numbers of young Americans go to college with little or no interest in academic studies, but that many of them eventually graduate mainly due to the low standards for earning course credits that prevail. Then what? The researchers who brought us Academically Adrift have now investigated the post-graduation experiences of their cohort of students and find exactly what you’d expect: getting that college degree did not transform them into successful, responsible citizens. Maybe we ought to consider ways to get colleges to admit just about everyone who applies and make it easy to graduation without much learning. I consider one such proposal.