It’s been well established that college takes longer these days. Philip S. Babcock and Mindy Marks have identified (earlier, ungated version here) another piece of the puzzle: decreasing time investments. They found that “[f]ull-time students allocated 40 hours per week toward class and studying in 1961, whereas by 2003 they were investing about 27 hours per week.” The declines were “broad-based” and couldn’t be explained by compositional changes. Both students who worked while in college and those who didn’t experienced declines in study time. The authors conclude that “if student effort is a meaningful input to the education production process, then declining time investment may signify declining production of human capital-or a dramatic and heretofore undocumented change in the way human capital is being produced on college campuses.”?(HT: Marginal Revolution)[%comments]
More on the College Puzzle
TAGS: Education
and 
. You can also watch it on 
College has always been like that, or at least in modern history. As Father Guido Sarducci’s Five Minute University concept suggests (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kO8x8eoU3L4) the lasting impact of college learning has been, let’s say, less than robust for many years, now.
I suspect that it takes longer these days to actually get a degree owes more to the commercial nature of modern colleges than to any real change in the students.
I also find the wording suspect. 40 vs 27 hours dedicated to class and studdying? If this is the case, I suspect it is largely due to the defacto ‘requirement’ of college resulting in people who have no desire (or reason) to be in college and the increasing admision numbers bringing in less and less qualified students. I also think this has to do with the definitions involved.
When I was in college, I spent (and still do) many hours reading research and trade periodicals that may or may not have had anything to do with the classes I was taking at the time, and I suspect many others spend a lot of time engaging in studdying that doesn’t relate to actual classes.
Just ask how much time people spend playing video games and using social networking sites… there’s the missing 13 hours!
In 1961 the majority of college funding did not come from the students’ pockets (or their parents’ pockets), now tuition (whether from parents, or governments, of sigh . . . .loans) is greatest (by far) part of the college funding (excluding the really well-endowed colleges like Berea).
Students are in the driver’s seat. When they whine the college administrations listen. Tough instructor — outta here. More entertainment . . . look at the difference in student centers fifty years ago and now . . . sure.
ron noon
The semester schedule at many colleges has been reduced as well:
My parents, who graduated in the late 50s, report that they had Saturday classes and midterms after Winter (Christmas) Break. No January intersession, and a longer Spring term.
My classes ended a couple weeks before Christmas, and then I wasn’t to start Spring Term until late January. The wise/efficient student took a Jan. class to gain more credits. Many chose vacation.
Higher productivity shouldn’t be the simple answer. Students have better tools so should be asked to produce more. Are college profs up on the latest productivity tools?
Many math professors, for example, do not know what Wolframalpha does for you with Mathematica. The kids know, however!
It is so very sad what has happened at all levels of education today. Perhaps I just wasn’t as smart as everybody else, but I studied morning, noon and night- there was required “BIG” not baby Bio,required two foreign languages,required “BIG” Chemistry,required, required and more. I learned so much I would go back and do it all over -and yes I would study even more! These poor kids are spending $200,000 and all demand A’s for not too much work and lots of spoon-fed exams.
Sadly, law schools are going the same way. There comes a time when you do as said above have to spend time to solve difficult problems. Not every problem lends itself to internet research.
I would suggest from my personal experience in college (2000-2004) that this study is very much correct. Classes weren’t requiring all of my time for a single major (and i didn’t have to work) so to fill in the time i added a second major and this turned out to be the right choice as it helped fill in many knowledge gaps and kept me from wasting time (and large sums of money) sitting around or going out drinking.
I graduated college in 1994. The reason I finished in 4 years was the fact that at my university you paid by the semester no matter how many classes you took.
Meaining if you took 3 you paid the same as if you took 6 classes. Having to pay for an extra semester or extra year to complete the same number of classes that someone else did in 4 years worked quite well. I think like 95% or more graduated on time.