Declining IQ of college grads

[W.D.Clinger]

Successful people who dropped out out school.

....snip for brevity....

Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein completed his secondary education (comparable to US high school) and graduated in 1896, at the age of 16 or 17.

Four years later, in 1900, Einstein graduated from ETH Zurich, which was and still is a prestigious research university.

Because he was working at the patent office, his post-graduate studies were part-time. Nonetheless he completed his doctoral work in 5 years (1905), although for some reason he did not formally receive his diploma until January 1906.

There is good reason to be skeptical when an alleged list of successful people who dropped out of school contains the name of Albert Einstein.

Are you making the claim that those people succeeded despite having low IQs?

I doubt very much he meant that; instead he wanted to refute the point about IQ being highly correlated with academic and social success, and came up with a list of people who are quite obviously (mostly) high IQ and highly successful. You could argue that since they didn't graduate college, they weren't particularly academically successful.

It is an article of faith among some around here that all a high IQ tells us is whether you are good at taking IQ tests.

No, I'm 'claiming' that they were extremely successful despite not managing to get a degree. Therefore the theory that societal success is highly correlated to academic 'success' and IQ is highly suspect. I suspect a large proportion of academic 'genuises' are actually rotting away in universities doing very little of note, and are certainly not as successful as people like the ones in my list.

It is true that "a large proportion of academic" professionals "are certainly not as successful as" Albert Einstein.

But it is not true that Albert Einstein is a counterexample to the idea "that societal success is highly correlated to academic 'success' and IQ", because Einstein was an academic success who earned university and doctoral degrees, and he probably had an extremely high IQ.

 

[ahhell]

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.

Where is the evidence that standards have been lowered rather than say there being more opportunity for more people to do a university degree? When I was the age to go to university there was little expectation that most people would even consider going to university regardless of their academic achievements.

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.

A recent meta-analysis found that undergraduates’ IQs have steadily fallen from roughly 119 in 1939 to a mean of 102 in 2022, just slightly above the population average of 100. “The decline in students’ IQ is a necessary consequence of increasing educational attainment over the last 80 years,” the researchers commented. “Today, graduating from university is more common than completing high school in the 1940s.” The decline in undergraduate IQs might just be another indication that the worth of a college degree has been hollowed out over time. Ironically, as it became a baseline for employment, a degree has become increasingly meaningless, as more people have one.

The first paragraph says all this article has to say.

 

[Vixen]

Are you making the claim that those people succeeded despite having low IQs?

This list is misleading. Jack Kerouac was a recognised bright star and achieved a scholarship to prestigious Columbia Uni NY.

As for Richard Branson - and I suspect for several of these 'very successful, high school drop outs' - hello, he had a rich father. It always helps to have bank of Mum and Dad to help with the initial capital to set up in business!

 

[Thermal]

NVM. This discussion is making my IQ hurt.

 

[Thermal]

This list is misleading. Jack Kerouac was a recognised bright star and achieved a scholarship to prestigious Columbia Uni NY.

As for Richard Branson - and I suspect for several of these 'very successful, high school drop outs' - hello, he had a rich father. It always helps to have bank of Mum and Dad to help with the initial capital to set up in business!

The list is actually a little psychotic, because the discussion was about high IQ being correlated to success, and that list was presented as a counterpoint by showing... people with presumsbly high IQs that went on to achieve great success.

 

[Vixen]

The list is actually a little psychotic, because the discussion was about high IQ being correlated to success, and that list was presented as a counterpoint by showing... people with presumsbly high IQs that went on to achieve great success.

Not to mention people like George Bernard Shaw born in the 1850's and Jack London early twentieth century - hardly ANYONE went to university in those days anyway. But many of the great writers, such as Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Jack London had the means to travel around and write their stuff, albeit perhaps living hand to mouth. But their works live on in posterity. You cannot say they are 'unsuccessful'!

Even then, so one can name fifty people who never graduated but it doesn't mean it is statistically relevant or even meaningful.

 

[Olmstead]

It appears to be highly correlated to academic and societal success.

Academic and societal success is also highly correlated with the affluence of one's parents. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that this points to affluence of one's parents being highly correlated with IQ as well.

Assuming all this is true, then we are dealing with a veritable correlation minefield, and perhaps the truth is not as simple as it first appears.

 

[Thermal]

Academic and societal success is also highly correlated with the affluence of one's parents. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that this points to affluence of one's parents being highly correlated with IQ as well.

Assuming all this is true, then we are dealing with a veritable correlation minefield, and perhaps the truth is not as simple as it first appears.

I'd go on to note that confidence is highly correlated with success. One of the most financially successful builders I know is absolutely dumb as a rock, but brimming with confidence and a sky high opinion of himself and his worth. Which of course brings ex-president and current felon Trump to mind.

Financial success will be built around a high value for financial success. Sharper people, being good strategizers, will naturally be disproportionately represented in financially successful endeavors. A guy like Tesla, on the other hand, was not as motivated by money as he was the pursuit of his passions. Was Tesla successful? He tore up his contract with Westinghouse that would have made him the first American billionaire. Died broke.

 

[Thermal]

Not to mention people like George Bernard Shaw born in the 1850's and Jack London early twentieth century - hardly ANYONE went to university in those days anyway. But many of the great writers, such as Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Jack London had the means to travel around and write their stuff, albeit perhaps living hand to mouth. But their works live on in posterity. You cannot say they are 'unsuccessful'!

Even then, so one can name fifty people who never graduated but it doesn't mean it is statistically relevant or even meaningful.

Also interestingly, many of the people on The List are actually the subjects of university studies. Papa Hemingway would have been a mite perturbed listening to some twat telling kids what he was all about.

 

[Vixen]

I'd go on to note that confidence is highly correlated with success. One of the most financially successful builders I know is absolutely dumb as a rock, but brimming with confidence and a sky high opinion of himself and his worth. Which of course brings ex-president and current felon Trump to mind.

Financial success will be built around a high value for financial success. Sharper people, being good strategizers, will naturally be disproportionately represented in financially successful endeavors. A guy like Tesla, on the other hand, was not as motivated by money as he was the pursuit of his passions. Was Tesla successful? He tore up his contract with Westinghouse that would have made him the first American billionaire. Died broke.

Well Trump claims he went to Wharton elite business school implying super high-IQ but as usual he was probably lying.

 

[Thermal]

Intelligence is certainly useful, but is a high IQ sufficiently more useful than a normal one? If it causes you to be pushed into a rat race of academic achievement then perhaps not.

Why in the world would you think a higher IQ "pushes you into a rat race"? There's a fairly complex matrix of factors that would be in play, like your competitiveness, confidence, self-efficacy, internal or external loci, etc, that would influence your getting into a "rat race". Your intelligence is probably something that would hardly factor in.

That's why I dropped out. I wanted a job that I could be competent at and enjoy doing without being pushed to (or beyond) the limit.

OK, but that's not even tangentially related to the topic of IQ. Some people are only satisfied when they are redlining. Some are more fulfilled with a more serene and contemplative lifestyle. Some want to pass Go and collect $200, and some want to have every Monopoly. What in the world does that have to do with the value or utility of a high IQ?

There's a lot more to life than just being able to solve puzzles faster than the next guy.

Yes...yes there is. But what does that have to do with anything being discussed? R&P is a-thataway --->. Not that solving puzzles faster is any kind of reflection of what a high IQ represents.

One large part of the S-B and WAIS is the analogy section. Speed is not a factor; it's about demonstrating an understanding the essential similarities and differences between similar concepts, and articulating that understanding.

 

[ahhell]

Academic and societal success is also highly correlated with the affluence of one's parents. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that this points to affluence of one's parents being highly correlated with IQ as well.

Assuming all this is true, then we are dealing with a veritable correlation minefield, and perhaps the truth is not as simple as it first appears.

Only one mine, a higher percentage of people graduate with college degrees now. There is no way that would result in anything related to IQ other than lower IQ of folks graduating from college. It's baked into the way IQ is calculated. IQ is a statistically determined. 100 is the mean. 130 is always 2 standard deviations from the mean.

Higer percentage of people graduating college means that they will have a lower IQ on average. Its unavoidable.

 

[Thermal]

Only one mine, a higher percentage of people graduate with college degrees now. There is no way that would result in anything related to IQ other than lower IQ of folks graduating from college. It's baked into the way IQ is calculated. IQ is a statistically determined. 100 is the mean. 130 is always 2 standard deviations from the mean.

Higer percentage of people graduating college means that they will have a lower IQ on average. Its unavoidable.

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.

 

[ahhell]

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.

Meh. Figure the top end of IQ skips college or drops out and the low end(about half of folks in this case) don't go, dumb rich people go and smart poor people don't. Or just within the margin of error. I see nothing that is all that extraordinary if you ask me. More folks go to college therefor college IQ drops, mathematically and statistically certain.

ETA: Also, IQ is normed to the folks that take IQ test, who is that exactly? Is it everyone?

 

[Thermal]

Meh. Figure the top end of IQ skips college or drops out and the low end(about half of folks in this case) don't go, dumb rich people go and smart poor people don't. Or just within the margin of error. I see nothing that is all that extraordinary if you ask me. More folks go to college therefor college IQ drops, mathematically and statistically certain.

ETA: Also, IQ is normed to the folks that take IQ test, who is that exactly? Is it everyone?

In US public schools, yes I believe it's every student entering the system, being tested to determine if they are mainstream or in need of special services. My blushing bride administers them.

Eta: and all.my kids had them administered prior to entrance. It may be only be a requirement of my state, NJ, though, now that I think of it.

 

[ahhell]

In US public schools, yes I believe it's every student entering the system, being tested to determine if they are mainstream or in need of special services. My blushing bride administers them.

Eta: and all.my kids had them administered prior to entrance. It may be only be a requirement of my state, NJ, though, now that I think of it.

Not at the school I went to. The only people tested were flagged as extraordinary in one way or another.

The schools my kids go to test everyone, probably better.

 

[Vixen]

Only one mine, a higher percentage of people graduate with college degrees now. There is no way that would result in anything related to IQ other than lower IQ of folks graduating from college. It's baked into the way IQ is calculated. IQ is a statistically determined. 100 is the mean. 130 is always 2 standard deviations from the mean.
Higer percentage of people graduating college means that they will have a lower IQ on average. Its unavoidable.

No, it is not. The standard deviation depends on how much the test scores deviate from the mean in a normal distribution. For example, an ±sd of 15 is the case for Ravens and Stanford-Binet but not Cattell.

 

[Brainster]

No, I'm 'claiming' that they were extremely successful despite not managing to get a degree. Therefore the theory that societal success is highly correlated to academic 'success' and IQ is highly suspect.

And yet you produced a list of people who were highly successful that (mostly) had or have high IQs. At best you have proven that societal success is not always dependent on academic success.

BTW, Dick Cheney may have dropped out of Yale, but he went on to get his BA and his MA in political science from the University of Wyoming, so he doesn't really fit here.

 

[ahhell]

No, it is not. The standard deviation depends on how much the test scores deviate from the mean in a normal distribution. For example, an ±sd of 15 is the case for Ravens and Stanford-Binet but not Cattell.

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?

 

[ahhell]

And yet you produced a list of people who were highly successful that (mostly) had or have high IQs. At best you have proven that societal success is not always dependent on academic success.

BTW, Dick Cheney may have dropped out of Yale, but he went on to get his BA and his MA in political science from the University of Wyoming, so he doesn't really fit here.

Also, how many people in that list went to school at a time when almost everybody "dropped out" before even highschool?

Harry Truman "Dropped out" of college after a year but at time when something like 5% of Americans went to college in the first place, he still had more education than the vast majority of his contemporaries. That list was just silly.

 

[Vixen]

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?

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.

 

[jt512]

It appears to be highly correlated to academic and societal success.

Correlation does not imply causation

I can't imagine why intelligence would be helpful in life, so, yeah, it's probably just a coincidence.

 

[jt512]

Where is the evidence that standards have been lowered...?

From under what rock did you just crawl?

 

[Olmstead]

Obviously intelligence also helps with immediately accepting the "self-evident".

 

[ahhell]

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.

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.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

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.

 

[Thermal]

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.

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.

 

[Klimax]

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).

Question is, are those 50% that good or did standards for degrees got that low.

 

[Darat]

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...

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).

 

[Darat]

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.

Depends if talking about mean or median averages?

 

[Darat]

Question is, are those 50% that good or did standards for degrees got that low.

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?

 

[SteveAitch]

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?

Classics, PPE, History of Art; basically nothing useful.

 

[Vixen]

Classics, PPE, History of Art; basically nothing useful.

The posh also gather in Catering (or at least, that was the perception at Surrey Uni).

 

[ahhell]

Classics, PPE, History of Art; basically nothing useful.

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]

No one posh would be seen dead studying at Surrey Uni.

 

[Carrot Flower King]

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).

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.

 

[Darat]

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.

 

[SteveAitch]

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.

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.

 

[Gulliver Foyle]

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.

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.

 

[Gulliver Foyle]

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).

The same system largely prevailed in the US which, while having no formal system of titles, was just as class ridden as the UK.