The Least Economically Diverse Top College, Seeking to Change – NYTimes.com.
I replied to the following comment – which is interesting.
Transparancy wrote
Wash U has been labeled Coddle University for some time. That fact must be known by the administration of Wash U. Top students express disdain for the use of luxury to attract students with money and the very students that Wash U is trying to attract are turned off by it. That is, top students from wealthy households speak of Wash U in critical tones because the perception is that they are trying to attract students via coddling, absurd luxuries and deference to privilege. Even their decision to expand aid reeks of something different than (and less than) a true commitment to finding ways to help educate capable students not able to pay exorbitant tuition. And, tuition would not be exorbitant if not for the luxuries they have built into their climate in an attempt to attract wealthy students. The very top students, even the wealthy ones, see exactly where Wash U’s money has been spent and they tend to choose against attending. They see the lack of need blind admissions, the huge preference given to legacies and they decide to attend universities with better values. So Wash U gets a lot of those students swayed by a posh and coddling academic climate. Is that not working for them any more?
I replied
Though I agree with most of what you say about Wash. U. being Coddle U., but here is the sad part.
When I taught there, there were plenty of students who wanted to learn and were willing to work hard to do so. Apparently, they weren’t part of the school’s “business” model. As the Math Chair shouted at me when I told him I was teaching based on my engineering background,
“I don’t care!”
He told me to make the course a “cookbook” course, telling me to show the students step-by-step how to do the problems that would be on the test. Had I done that, those serious students would have been robbed of the education that they deserved – and got. All the students learned well.
But no one should think that Wash. U.’s behavior stands out that much.
There is a reason why, across the country, students are only required to study about 13 hours a week to get a better grade than students from the 60’s got by studying 25 hours a week. The difference in critical thinking after two years of college is now almost zero. It used to be one sigma.
David Riesman saw the reason 35 years ago, when he wrote his “On Higher Education: The Academic Enterprise in an Era of Rising Student Consumerism”. Here is what he wrote.
“…advantage can still be taken of [students] by unscrupulous instructors and institutions…like any other interest group, the student estate often does not grasp its own interests, and those who speak in its name are not always its friends.”
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