What Will They Learn? A Survey of Core Requirements at Our Nation's Colleges and Universities

The crisis in higher education is about more than money. It is about what one has been paying for, paying for dearly. The public, even in these hard times, supports higher education with its tax dollars. And families make huge sacrifices to send their sons and daughters to college. They deserve in return higher education that provides real preparation for a challenging, dynamic world economy and for the continuing demands of engaged and informed citizenship. In this report, the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) examines just what it is that tuition dollars and public support are paying for. The authors ask whether American undergraduates are gaining a reasonable college-level introduction to seven core subjects. Will they find at their colleges and universities a coherent core curriculum that identifies critical areas for required study? Or will they be left to devise their own general education from an array of random, unconnected choices? These are not trivial questions. In a time of economic uncertainty and rapid changes in career opportunities, a college education that lacks a solid core betrays the public trust. By asking such questions, parents, trustees, policymakers, and prospective students can sound a wake-up call to colleges and universities. That is why ACTA is issuing this report. The authors cut through the rhetoric of college catalogs and get to what matters: what will students be expected to learn. For fifteen years, ACTA has focused on higher education accountability, and the authors hope their findings will help parents and students make informed choices and motivate trustees and alumni to demand more of their institutions. List of colleges by state is appended. (Contains 13 endnotes.)