A National Problem

Before you can understand the value of Are You Really Ready For College?, you must first understand the problems it seeks to resolve, problems that have gone mostly unreported in the national news. While local communities may celebrate the remarkable achievements of their high school graduates, communities do not track the performance of these graduates after they enter college. Following their college careers would make a revealing story.

Many high school students who repeatedly earn 3.5-4.0 grade point averages find that, in college, their grades fall dramatically. As college students, they cope by dropping courses to avoid poor/failing grades, to lighten the workload, or, to rid themselves of morning classes in an effort to offset sleep deprivation. They change their majors — often more than once — abandoning their intended career in search of more manageable areas of study.

Dropping courses and changing majors add semesters — and certainly cost — to earning a degree. Fortune magazine reports the traditional four-year degree is rapidly turning into a six-year degree. The Education Trust agrees, announcing that a four-year degree is now “atypical.” The cost to the nation’s parents is staggering, even with financial aid. Multiply the millions of college students by more than $28,000 a year for private schools and $15,000 a year for public schools. Often, parents do not understand what has really happened to their child. They simply foot the bill.

The Many Parts of the Problem

After a summer’s break, college-bound high school graduates pack up their hopes along with the car and head off to campus. Their parents are a little nervous about this big step. And if the truth be told, the new freshman is a little nervous too. But, “Hey,” the student thinks, “I got good grades in high school. It’ll be okay.” Four weeks later, it’s not okay, and the student doesn’t know why. 

Your First College Year, an annual study of college freshmen conducted by UCLA, found that roughly 40% felt “overwhelmed by all they had to do.” What’s wrong? Many freshmen are simply unprepared to cope with the rigors of college work. The approach to learning that earned the student A and B grades in high school no longer works with college courses. Consequently, a great many college freshmen eventually find themselves in academic trouble. Faced with lower-than-usual grades plus more challenging and complicated workloads, these students are clueless about why they are not “succeeding as usual.”  

The problem confronting the new freshman doesn’t go away. The Education Trust reports that only 37% of freshmen graduate in four years. In the final analysis, “barely 6 out of 10 first-time full-time degree seeking college freshmen graduate within six years.” The Trust adds an even worse statistic: one of every four freshmen never returns to campus for their sophomore year. How can it be that students who earn high grades in high school are unprepared for college? A number of factors are at work. Here is a very brief explanation.

A major misconception about learning. In elementary school, teachers do most of the work in class, “drilling” students until the majority of the class acquires the skill or understands the concept. Then the class moves on. As a result, many students believe that learning takes place only in the classroom, not outside of it.

This limited perspective of learning stays with students through middle school and into high school, affecting how students manage their time and the way they approach study.

Study and homework, rather than becoming extensions of the school day, are regarded more or less as extra work that encroaches on what adolescents consider their legitimate free time after the school day “ends.”

Cramming earns grades. As students mature, they are supposed to assume more responsibility outside of class for their learning. Some do; many don’t. Many want to continue to be “passive learners,” relying on the teacher to give them the knowledge they need during class. These students who continue this immature learning style are able to mask it because they’ve learned to cram for tests rather than study the material each night as the course unfolds.

A focus on grades, not knowledge. The root of the problem. Cramming produces long-term damage because students acquire only short-term knowledge when they cram. Such temporary knowledge will eventually undermine their efforts in college when students confront advanced versions of their high school courses, for which they are expected to have a solid background. High school students don’t see this long view. They are working for grades at this point; knowledge is less important.

Teenage students think that cramming “works.” With such high grade points, how can they not be learning? The American Freshman: National Norms for Fall 2004 found that 65.6% of college-bound high school seniors studied, at most, five hours per week. Here’s the breakdown:

An unrealistic self-image. Because cramming earns teens good grades on tests, students develop an inflated view of their academic ability. In the fall of 2004, The Higher Education Research Institute’s American Freshman: National Norms reported that 69.5% of college freshmen view themselves as belonging to the “highest 10% in academic ability” or “above average.” With such high academic self-confidence, these students cannot figure out why the approach to study that worked so well for them in high school is not making the grade in their college courses.

Cramming no longer works in college. College courses move at a much faster pace than high school courses, cover far more material — much of it to be learned outside of class to supplement class work — and generally offer fewer tests per semester. Getting behind in the readings is deadly. Because there is so much more material covered and students are being tested on large amounts of material, cramming no longer works. With fewer tests, each grade counts more, and there are fewer opportunities to offset low test grades.

How clueless can they be? During a class session of Strategies for College Success at the University of Utah, students traded tips on how to prepare for a big test. Tips ranged from prayer, to eating peanut butter and fish (brain food), to listening to relaxing music the night before the test. The most obvious strategy eludes them: study. It’s because they think they’ve done “enough,” a result of not understanding what learning is or what it entails.

In short, many students have gone through their lives understanding what to learn but not how to learn it. Even those who say that they spend “hours” on high school homework, work in places with distractions: TVs, phones, e-mail, noisy places in the house. They may put in the time, but they are not productive.

The Missing Piece

Students get to college, and the work and the pace increases, calling for higher productivity, more time, and greater diligence. Because they are confident in themselves, these students believe they can handle the load without adjusting their routines. They quickly find that their high school approach to studies is not working. They fall behind. Unaided, students are too immature to recognize the skills that adults would bring to managing a project such as learning:

Most teens earn excellent grades by studying fewer than five hours a week. As a result, the great majority of students equate the simple acts of reading a chapter or handing in assignments with “learning.” When students enter college, this approach becomes their downfall. It’s the major reason that 63% of students don’t graduate in the traditional four years — and nearly 40% take longer than six years or don’t graduate at all. In community colleges, 50% of students drop out after freshman year.

Learning to learn. Consider this irony. A student athlete gets coaching, a practice schedule, guidance on the fine points of the sport, suggestions about how to develop athletic skills, and regular individual attention. The student, whose job is really no different from that of the athlete, gets no such instruction about how to develop or improve as a learner. My book becomes the student’s personal academic coach.

The numbers affected. Parents plunge deeper into debt and students watch their dreams fade or disappear. It’s a rarely reported national problem, which Netscape News/CNN dubbed college’s “dirty little secret,” and it will continue to grow.

The American Council on Education projected that the full-time college enrollment will increase 19% between 2001 and 2011. In 2011, there will be 17.7 million. Neither these students nor their families are prepared for the high numbers of young people who fail to earn degrees. This problem continues to worsen.

While some students drop out because of financial or family problems, the great majority can be saved. Are You Really Ready For College? can save them. The simpler environment of the high school years provides the perfect atmosphere to acquire the learning skills needed for college. Taking on personal responsibility is easier when students are still at home in a familiar community with their parents providing support. It’s a safe time and a structured place to try out critical life-long learning skills.

My son, Tom, adopted the book’s strategies while in high school. He earned an extraordinary 19 college credits from his Advanced Placement tests. At the end of his first year in college, Tom’s g.p.a. was 3.963. The following three semesters, he earned a 4.0. He worked for his grades and learned the material, but he also found time for a social life, casual athletics, orchestra, and service projects. Tom, however, is in the minority.

What Student Surveys Say

Your First College Year gathered information from 50 four-year institutions to learn about the freshman year experience. And the news is not good: Here are some highlights from the academic side:

• Nearly 40% felt overwhelmed by all they had to do.
• 36.7% said they studied fewer than 6 hours during a typical week.
• 43.6% were bored in class.
• 41.5% admitted turning in assignments that did not reflect their best work.

These numbers echo findings from an earlier National Survey of Student Engagement. This research discovered that –

• Undergraduates study only one-third the time professors said was necessary.
• Inadequate studying is not a problem confined to freshmen: 20% of seniors spent
  only 1-5 hours preparing for class.
• Only 12% of freshmen reported studying 26 or more hours a week.

Given a normal full-time class load of 15-18 credits, college students should be studying 30-plus hours a week – roughly 2-3 hours of study for every hour spent in class. While colleges expect students to be more engaged than in high school, these surveys prove otherwise. Both studies give numbers to a performance problem that academic professionals have understood for years. It’s a phenomenon that has far-reaching effects for millions of students and their parents.

View my blog at: areyoureallyreadyforcollege.blogspot.com

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