Higher Education in America

undergraduates spent either in class or doing their homework dropped by almost one-third—from roughly 40 hours per week to only 27.

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.

According to this investigation, students averaged 13 hours per week of studying, 12 hours socializing with friends, 11 hours using computers for fun, 6 hours watching television, 6 hours exercising, 5 hours engaging in hobbies, and 3 hours enjoying other forms of entertainment.

Writings in scientific journals fare better; only 25 percent are reportedly never cited.

In a recent book, he argues that many of the students currently enrolled are simply not capable of performing college-level work.

Today, the largest share of support for university research (almost 60 percent) comes from the federal government.

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

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.

In a recent ranking compiled by a group of Chinese scholars, all but three of the twenty highest-rated universities in the world were located in the United States.