Weekly Readings & Article Controversies

After reading all the articles assigned for the week, I found that Have College Freshman Changed? Students are Different Now & Grade Inflation in American Education really caught my attention and related very well to each other. These two articles are up for extreme debate.  The articles summarize controversial educational topics that colleges are beginning to face on a daily basis.

“Are social, academic and financial pressures on freshmen becoming more intense?” And does that have an effect on how college freshman have changed? I believe so. The article states that college students today are less mature than they were and often not ready for the responsibility of being in college. Students today cannot cope with the stress today and have a “lack of resistance” and I myself being a college student fully agree with that argument. I too sometimes get overwhelmed and just feel too stressed out to want to complete my work to the best of my abilities. Is it the parents fault for babying their children and protecting them from life’s obstacles? That may be the problem; I have noticed an increased number of students who don’t really know a lot about independent responsibilities because they are so used to their parents taking care of everything for them.

“…the college experience itself is not more intense today than it was during the past 10 years. What is believed is that many students are often not prepared to be young “adults” with all the responsibilities of life.” College professors today have to explain what it means to be an independent college student before we can even begin to teach. Independence and responsibility needs to begin at an early age so that college can actually be a passage to independent adulthood.

The main controversy surrounding grade inflation in America is students are studying less and not working as hard but are being handed high grade point averages. Law Schools throughout the country are retroactively inflating its grades, tacking on 0.333 to every grade recorded in the last few years. The goal is to make its students look more attractive in a competitive job market. If you can get a higher grade without studying at all, why bother studying very hard? This is not all fair for the students who strive to do their best and work their absolute hardest to earn the grades they worked so hard for. “Academic grade inflation has also made its way down to the secondary school level, where failure is simply not an option under "No Child Left Behind" and failing student grades are usually considered a weakness on the part of the teacher's ability to connect to the student rather than poor student motivation and achievement.” True academic excellence in American Education should be earned, not handed to them.

These two articles controversies complement each other very well. Is it because children today are babied more by their parent while they are growing up that they cannot cope with the stress and amount of work given to them. The result of this problem is that students GPA are not as high as they were in previous years and therefore colleges are beginning to raise their students GPA’s to make student look more efficient than they actually are.