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Halloween Nightmare, Part II. (Or, What $50,000+ Can't Buy)
Yesterday, we noted the rapid expansion of the "50K Club," those colleges and universities whose bill for tuition, fees, room, and board exceeds $50,000 per year. (And note, following our Halloween theme, that that hefty sum does not include transportation, books, and incidentals.) But how good is the education members of the "50K Club" provide? ACTA's WhatWillTheyLearn? survey recently reviewed the core curricula of 718 institutions to see how many of the following key subjects were required of undergraduates: English composition, foreign language at the intermediate level , economics, college level mathematics, natural science, literature survey, and survey of American history or government. These we deemed necessary conditions of a quality education, and we assigned grades to the schools based on how many of these seven core subjects they required. Of the 100 schools in the "50K Club," there were 35 Fs and 14 Ds. Trick or treat.
Posted by Michael Poliakoff on November 03, 2010 at November 3, 2010 12:10 PM
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One of the things I dislike about ACTA is its focus on the elites. ACTA relentlessly criticizes those in the 50K Club; perhaps more attention to colleges like mine (call them the 5K Club) would turn up something for ACTA to praise.
Posted by: Eveningsun at November 4, 2010 03:26 PM
Thank you, Professor Mazel, for your thoughtful observation. In fact, ACTA shares your belief that possibly the best news to emerge from our study of core curricula around the nation is that many of the most comprehensive and well-considered general education curricula are at public institutions with relatively modest tuition costs. We have made this important point consistently, and it has been reinforced by education policy experts and media. See, for example, Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker's comparison of Lamar University and Harvard, based on ACTA's research, and p. 15 of our 2009 WhatWillTheyLearn? report. We will make this point yet more forcefully in our 2010 WhatWillTheyLearn? report, which will soon be on our website.
Posted by: Michael Poliakoff at November 10, 2010 11:24 AM