You don’t even get fries with this 

by Vermont Woodchuck

Best and brightest’ dim on history

Tomorrow is President’s Day, so it’s an appropriate time to see who has a good handle on national history or government. If you think, however, the nation’s college students have the most knowledge about the subjects, think again.

College freshmen earned an average grade of ‘F’ — or just 53.7 percent — when asked a series of questions about U.S. presidents and key historical events from their times in office. After four years of college, their knowledge didn’t improve.

College seniors got just 55.4 percent on the 60-question quiz given to 14,000 students at 50 colleges and universities around the country as part of a study designed to test their knowledge of America’s history, government, international relations and market economy. [snip]

It found that Harvard University seniors did best, with a grade of just 69.6 percent — a D-plus. In general, the higher a college ranked on the widely publicized U.S. News & World Report rankings, the lower it ranked on civic learning. In schools such as Cornell, Duke, Yale and Princeton, all ranked in the magazine’s top 12, seniors actually did worse than freshman.

You’re surprised at this?

Archived in: , , ,

February 17, 2008 at 4:35 pm | Trackback

← Vermont legislature addictedThe no Twinkie diet →

1 comment

1 Chris { 02.17.08 at 6:00 pm } 

These are all taught in high school by teachers who don’t care for politics or history; who teach it because it’s a requirement for the students. Therefore the students have no reason to care either.

It’d be interesting to see how foreigners who migrate to America score on this quiz. I imagine the average grade would be an A. My cuban friend knows more about America than even I (somehow), and he migrated here when he was 10.