Higher Education in America

A staggering 98 percent of all published articles in the arts and humanities are never cited, and the corresponding figure for articles in the social sciences is 75 percent, a figure only slightly less dismaying.

Yet this explanation fails as well, because most of the drop in study time took place before the Internet existed.

lower. One study issued by the US Department of Education found that among the high school graduates of 1992 who were college-qualified, only 52 percent of low-income students and 62 percent of middle-income students had entered a four-year college by 1994.

twenty pages in length during the entire year.

In another effort to use technology effectively, Carol Twigg has been working with colleges to reconfigure the way their professors teach large introductory courses in a variety of subjects ranging from chemistry and biology to English, fine arts, and sociology.

is to diminish the number of lectures by (high-priced) professors while employing technology to allow more problem solving and active learning through the use of collaborating groups with graduate student tutors on hand to help when students get stuck.

From 1961 to 2004, according to a series of self-reports from large samples of students, the average amount of time that

No one yet has managed to measure how well our professors teach or how much our students learn, let alone compare the results with those of other nations.

sections achieved this result while spending an average of 25 percent less time on the course, resulting in cost savings to the institution ranging from 19 to 57 percent compared with carefully selected control groups enrolled in courses with different types of conventional formats.