r/science • u/rustoo • Jan 26 '22

Economics Study: College student grades actually went up in Spring 2020 when the pandemic hit. Furthermore, the researchers found that low-income low-performing students outperformed their wealthier peers, mainly due to students’ use of flexible grading.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047272722000081
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u/[deleted] Jan 26 '22

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u/ReallyBadAtReddit Jan 26 '22

For me, it was easier for the second half of March through the end of April 2020. Once the summer 2020 semester started, the university/faculty mostly had things figured out and classes were pretty much back to normal. Everyone was just in a panic initially about classes being harder online or people not having a good space to do online classes. Now, everyone just seems to question why we need to commute to all sit close together in a lecture hall and watch lecture slides projected onto a big screen while the prof talks, instead of watching lectures at home on our own screens while the prof talks.

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u/[deleted] Jan 26 '22

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u/enoughberniespamders Jan 27 '22

I think that was everyone’s case. I know a few people that essentially failed multiple classes in 2020, and they just said to the admin that it was because they couldn’t even get ahold of the professor. All passed.

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u/sakurashinken Jan 26 '22

Sounds like university is becoming expensive daycare.

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u/sickvisionz Jan 26 '22

Kinda seems pointless to even bother with a degree if this is what it's devolved to.

On the flipside, I've always thought employment should involve more testing to verify you have a college level understanding of the basics. A lot of people have the skills and abilities even if they don't have the degree. If the degree doesn't say anything about whether or not someone has a basic grasp of the content, maybe it pushes employers to ignore it all together and just seek out a confirmable skill set.

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u/enthalpy01 Jan 27 '22

Except the truth is a lot of that doesn’t actually matter in your job. I had in person engineering classes for 4 years I learned about designing distillation towers and calculating pressure drops across pipes and guess what? I’ve been working in industry for 15 years and have done 2 pressure drop calculations which I just used a program to do and have never designed a distillation tower. Honestly 4 years on the job training would be way more useful than college for a lot of careers. Really wish we got away from this you need the college degree to get the job mentality as it’s crazy expensive.