• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Declining IQ of college grads

ahhell said:
Ok, my bad. Standard deviation is always the same for the test in question. Does that change the fact that if a higher percentage of people go to college they average IQ of the people that go to college will decrease?
Click to expand...

That seems true. I don't believe it was ever particularly high anyway. According to some research a while back, it was calculated that the optimal IQ for people to thrive at college (as an undergraduate) was between 114 to 130, Cattell scale,± sd apx 20 . Anything over or under that would be a struggle one way or the other. This is because educational courses are designed with a certain ability range in mind. In other words, where the majority of college students benefit. Fact is, privately educated pupils at the public schools proper (the so-called elite band) get an enormous amount of post-curricular assistance. My ex works as maths tutor and was in great demand by parents desperate to get their kids through and were willing and knowledgeable enough to know about private tuition and what an advantage it is. I was surprised to discover there was even tuition in how to pass IQ tests such as the 11-plus or school entrance exams.
 
Obviously intelligence also helps with immediately accepting the "self-evident".
 
Thermal said:
Yes, bit it's still odd that the average would be so close to dead average. Seems like if 50% were nabbing diplomas, it would still be the higher 50% of the IQ range. I mean, that's a lot of two digit IQ holders running around campus to keep the average that low.

Not that I'm sure the OP article stat is accurate, come to think of it. Imma maybe Google for a bit.

Eta: First scholarly hit (ignoring tabloid level reporting for the moment): a 2009 paper finds the average college student has an IQ of 114, and being in the 100 area is correlated with a 50% drop out rate.

https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Murray%20Intelligence.pdf

Eta2: clicking on the OP article linked source for the stat, it goes 404.
Click to expand...
On retrospect, I think I agree. If the most intelligent 40% of folks were going to college it would still mean that the average IQ of College grads should be higher than barely above average for the population. So, there is something else here than just we are educating more people.
 
I think there is something else going on, too:

many tasks that an IQ test checks are things that a student knows how to use a calculator, phone or computer to assist with.
That means that contemporary students haven't lost access to skills, they just have outsourced some, whilst gaining others.
 
ahhell said:
On retrospect, I think I agree. If the most intelligent 40% of folks were going to college it would still mean that the average IQ of College grads should be higher than barely above average for the population. So, there is something else here than just we are educating more people.
Click to expand...

Right. We know there are 140 IQs on every campus. Seems like you'd need a corresponding amount of 60 IQs in caps and gowns to even that action out, and I'm not buying that. My guess is someone is playing games with the numbers/data interpretation.
 
Vixen said:
In England educational achievement was often closely linked to class. The so-called public schools started off as a charity providing education for the upper middle classes' boys who were expected to work for a living (the aristocracy didn't need to work as we know it). The upper classes on seeing the benefits of such an education quickly sent their sons to the same public schools, with Eton originally being a 'feeder' to Oxford University Kings College, founded by Henry IV (iirc). So the fetish of employers for the Eton-Oxford brigade, not to mention the armed forces and politics is a thing associated with high status rather than high IQ.

People don't like the new egalitarian standard of roughly 50% of the population now obtaining a bachelors degrees because it is no longer a class marker (although in England the class system is still there).
Click to expand...

Question is, are those 50% that good or did standards for degrees got that low.
 
ahhell said:
Not surprising. More people are graduating from college, IQ is normed to the average of everyone tested not just everyone that graduates from college.

Less than 10% of folks graduated from college in 1960, now its almost 40%. Of course, the average IQ of graduates is lower now than in the past.


That amounts to different ways of saying the same thing.

More opportunity necessarily means that standard will have to lower in some way. Back when it was only 10% of the population, they had to be more selective by necessity.
...snip...
Click to expand...

But what was the selection criteria? In England for example it was for a long time based on which school you had attended as university was simply not on the cards for those not attending the right secondary education schools i.e. public schools (remember UK terms - public schools are private fee paying schools).
 
Thermal said:
Right. We know there are 140 IQs on every campus. Seems like you'd need a corresponding amount of 60 IQs in caps and gowns to even that action out, and I'm not buying that. My guess is someone is playing games with the numbers/data interpretation.
Click to expand...

Depends if talking about mean or median averages?
 
Klimax said:
Question is, are those 50% that good or did standards for degrees got that low.
Click to expand...

There are still degrees of degrees e.g. firsts etc. Perhaps there are more "lesser degrees" these days rather than "the standards" (whatever that even means) being dropped?
 
Darat said:
There are still degrees of degrees e.g. firsts etc. Perhaps there are more "lesser degrees" these days rather than "the standards" (whatever that even means) being dropped?
Click to expand...

Classics, PPE, History of Art; basically nothing useful. ;)
 
SteveAitch said:
Classics, PPE, History of Art; basically nothing useful. ;)
Click to expand...
I had no idea they over degrees in personal safety equipment.

I know, as understand it PPE is basically what we call polysci. Still, I can only think of personal protective equipment.
 
Darat said:
But what was the selection criteria? In England for example it was for a long time based on which school you had attended as university was simply not on the cards for those not attending the right secondary education schools i.e. public schools (remember UK terms - public schools are private fee paying schools).
Click to expand...

When I went to university ('76-'79) it was 6-7% of the year group went: we were selected on A-level grades and interview, aside from Oxbridge, which were still running their own entrance exams which gave advantage to private schools. I attended a state grammar school, as Durham was one of the last to give up selection at 11 (well, 10 in my case).

The bulk of those at Sheffield at the time will also have been state educated.

Selective education was essentially a filtering mechanism, with increasingly fine filters at 11, then 16, then 18 (or 10, 15 and 17 for me), aiming at university at the end.
 
Yeah you were a recipient of the Wilson government's attempt to break the logjam caused by the class system. By the time I went to college which was mid 80s, it was about 15% that either went to uni or to make sure the working class didn't get above themselves with this education malarky - poly.
 
Darat said:
Yeah you were a recipient of the Wilson government's attempt to break the logjam caused by the class system. By the time I went to college which was mid 80s, it was about 15% that either went to uni or to make sure the working class didn't get above themselves with this education malarky - poly.
Click to expand...

Don't knock the polys, they generally did good more-practically oriented degrees and HNDs.

Like mine. ;)

Turning them into second string unis was a bad idea, imo.
 
ahhell said:
Not surprising. More people are graduating from college, IQ is normed to the average of everyone tested not just everyone that graduates from college.

Less than 10% of folks graduated from college in 1960, now its almost 40%. Of course, the average IQ of graduates is lower now than in the past.


That amounts to different ways of saying the same thing.

More opportunity necessarily means that standard will have to lower in some way. Back when it was only 10% of the population, they had to be more selective by necessity. ETA:
The more I think about it the dumber this is and the madder it makes me. It's just stupid. All this says is that more people are going to college. Its like saying that the average IQ of automobile owner decreased between 1920 and 1950.

The first paragraph says all this article has to say.
Click to expand...

Yes but the selection heavily favoured the little Lord Fountelroys of the upper class. I would say that, now that academics is more open to all, standards will necessarily be much higher than when academics were the preserve of the elite, because nowadays degrees are far less likely to be in recognition of being your father's son.
 
Darat said:
But what was the selection criteria? In England for example it was for a long time based on which school you had attended as university was simply not on the cards for those not attending the right secondary education schools i.e. public schools (remember UK terms - public schools are private fee paying schools).
Click to expand...

The same system largely prevailed in the US which, while having no formal system of titles, was just as class ridden as the UK.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom