Rick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute has a good piece on the decline of academic standards in college.

He builds his piece around two points: first, the termination of NYU chemistry professor Maitland Jones after a number of his students griped that his organic chemistry course was too difficult, and second, a survey showing that a large percentage of college students think that too much is being asked of them (despite the fact that they don’t actually do many hours of work per week).

This is the inevitable result of our schools being more concerned with student happiness than with academic achievement. Teachers are less and less willing to demand much of students because it means being unpopular and sets up the possibility of hostile action, as in the case of Jones. It’s so much easier to adjust things down to the level where students won’t complain.

Many students have come to think of college as an entitlement (to be paid for mostly by other people), and they want it with a minimum of effort. College costs a great deal and delivers remarkably little value, a by-product of government involvement.