I heard a sports podcaster recently recount his college experience. He was very proud that what he had “learned” in college was how to game the system to maximize his grades with minimal effort. Easiest major, take summer classes that were less intense, look for easy A classes… cynically I think that’s what a lot of students do. Learn to manage the game, get to the next level. Worked for him, but even in technical fields, there is so much on the job learning a person will have to do to become adept that sprinting through the college training phase is not a crazy strategy.
I do think that high schools have become less demanding and that Covid exacerbated this trend. These days, I have a lot of students who take "mental health" days and who are afraid to say much in class for fear of raising the ire of their peers. They got used to flexible deadlines and teachers granting them exemptions from course requirements. However, I'm sure that smart phones and "living online" hasn't helped. I, personally, find it much easier to read sustained arguments when I read them in physical books or a physical article than when presented online.
I didn't go to college in the US, but just 1.2 hours going to class!? I'm sure I went to class over 20hours a week. My brother, who's in college, also averages about 15hours in class.
Does this sample include post-grads or are American undergrads simply not going to class?
One more thing that stuck out was just 0.4 hours sports/exercise. What are kids even doing?
This is for sure way less than I or any of my successful peers worked in college, but I just can't imagine how meaningful an average across all undergraduates is. There is probably still a lot of variation as there was 20 years ago, I'm sure.
But it's also easy to imagine students working less these days. Hey, the credential is just about signaling, right?
I found a related study that discusses the methodology a bit more. This one found an average of 67 minutes in class and 88 minutes on homework, which is not very different from the 1.2 and 1.4 hours. It looks like this one says they sampled everyone on a random day between September and May, and threw out data from holidays or from “poor quality time diaries”. So this averages weekends and weekdays, and a few weeks between or just outside term but not the summer.
Interestingly, the standard deviation on time in class was 125 minutes, and on homework time was 144 minutes. Since those standard deviations are greater than double the mean, that suggests a good number of student-days where it was 0 and a non-trivial number where it was more than triple the average.
15 units of enrollment and going to 15 hours of class per week would average a bit over 2 hours per day. If some fraction were surveyed between terms or during spring break, then this translates to a 30-40% skip/sick/absent rate.
I think when I teach a smallish class (under 30 students), a 10% absent rate sounds right for average days, and when I teach a large lecture class (300 students) the absent rate is probably over 50%. I don’t know what fraction of student enrollment is in large classes vs small, and how much the average will differ at different types of institution, but maybe this is starting to sound plausible.
Cranky old Boomer here. I have four degrees, the first a B.A. in English, the other three in Mechanical Engineering, all from a large Research One public university in the Midwest. I think it's very important to look more closely at what the students are majoring in. I can guarantee that no one majoring in any technical field is devoting only an hour or two per day to homework. Perhaps for the first year, but after that they've switched to communications or social work or, yes, English. It is very frustrating to me that 95% of the discussion of higher ed in the US (especially in the NYT and WaPo) is focused on humanities majors at Ivy League universities. Dammit, the engineers, scientists, and programmers who drive our economy are overwhelmingly educated at large public universities. But how often does the mainstream media even acknowledge the existence of these schools? Personally, I don't give a damn where all you lawyers and journalist went to school, what about the engineers??
As a less elder millennial, I feel like I didn't have to put in that much work to do decently well in my coursework. I would have needed to put in a lot of work to get a 4.0 GPA but was content with a 3.6 (math major, econ minor). It was definitely much easier than my middle and high school teachers were hyping it up to be.
I was also very active in my fraternity (chapter treasurer and president) and school newspaper (sports editor for two years, managing editor for the third), so I still stayed busy.
What are these majors? 1.2 hours a day of classes and 1.6 hours of homework?
I'd generally max out my workload but I'd probably sleep 6 hours average (anywhere from 4-8 hours), have class for 3-6 hours, maybe socialize for 4-5 hours on weekends and 1-3 hours on weekdays, and study for the rest - but often the socializing time was also mixed with studying.
Interesting. I had about 16 hours a week of lecture, and always went. And problem sets took like another 24 hours per week. I swear that I didn't plan for it to add to 40. I did spread homework across the whole week, so honestly per day it wasn't too much at all...strange how low the numbers seem in this chart.
Wow. As the dad of two college kids I feel much better about the whole thing. My kids are about average engaged college kids! I’m so happy. I’m gonna call one of them right now. I’m sure whichever one I call won’t be studying or in class.
Where the heck are they getting their data? I wish students were getting over 8 hours of sleep a night, but sleep deprivation is a big health issue on campuses. And even if you no homework whatsoever, you will likely be in class ca. 10 hours a week if you are a full time student. Based on those two stats alone, I can't take the rest of this chart seriously. I have two kids in college now - one at a very demanding school and one at a middle of the road one, and these numbers make no sense to me.
Turns out they don’t do June to September, and they also throw out “holidays” but there’s still probably a good number of non-school-days (at least weekends, also probably finals week, spring break, and maybe the week or two between terms).
I heard a sports podcaster recently recount his college experience. He was very proud that what he had “learned” in college was how to game the system to maximize his grades with minimal effort. Easiest major, take summer classes that were less intense, look for easy A classes… cynically I think that’s what a lot of students do. Learn to manage the game, get to the next level. Worked for him, but even in technical fields, there is so much on the job learning a person will have to do to become adept that sprinting through the college training phase is not a crazy strategy.
I do think that high schools have become less demanding and that Covid exacerbated this trend. These days, I have a lot of students who take "mental health" days and who are afraid to say much in class for fear of raising the ire of their peers. They got used to flexible deadlines and teachers granting them exemptions from course requirements. However, I'm sure that smart phones and "living online" hasn't helped. I, personally, find it much easier to read sustained arguments when I read them in physical books or a physical article than when presented online.
I didn't go to college in the US, but just 1.2 hours going to class!? I'm sure I went to class over 20hours a week. My brother, who's in college, also averages about 15hours in class.
Does this sample include post-grads or are American undergrads simply not going to class?
One more thing that stuck out was just 0.4 hours sports/exercise. What are kids even doing?
This is for sure way less than I or any of my successful peers worked in college, but I just can't imagine how meaningful an average across all undergraduates is. There is probably still a lot of variation as there was 20 years ago, I'm sure.
But it's also easy to imagine students working less these days. Hey, the credential is just about signaling, right?
I found a related study that discusses the methodology a bit more. This one found an average of 67 minutes in class and 88 minutes on homework, which is not very different from the 1.2 and 1.4 hours. It looks like this one says they sampled everyone on a random day between September and May, and threw out data from holidays or from “poor quality time diaries”. So this averages weekends and weekdays, and a few weeks between or just outside term but not the summer.
https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2019/article/pdf/balancing-college-and-kids-estimating-time-allocation-differences-for-college-students-with-and-without-children.pdf
Interestingly, the standard deviation on time in class was 125 minutes, and on homework time was 144 minutes. Since those standard deviations are greater than double the mean, that suggests a good number of student-days where it was 0 and a non-trivial number where it was more than triple the average.
15 units of enrollment and going to 15 hours of class per week would average a bit over 2 hours per day. If some fraction were surveyed between terms or during spring break, then this translates to a 30-40% skip/sick/absent rate.
I think when I teach a smallish class (under 30 students), a 10% absent rate sounds right for average days, and when I teach a large lecture class (300 students) the absent rate is probably over 50%. I don’t know what fraction of student enrollment is in large classes vs small, and how much the average will differ at different types of institution, but maybe this is starting to sound plausible.
Ehh I was a weirdo and worked a lot. 2 hours in class a day and then like 4 with reading and coursework.
I didn’t party. I watched a lot of Steven Seagal and Disney movies with friends.
Cranky old Boomer here. I have four degrees, the first a B.A. in English, the other three in Mechanical Engineering, all from a large Research One public university in the Midwest. I think it's very important to look more closely at what the students are majoring in. I can guarantee that no one majoring in any technical field is devoting only an hour or two per day to homework. Perhaps for the first year, but after that they've switched to communications or social work or, yes, English. It is very frustrating to me that 95% of the discussion of higher ed in the US (especially in the NYT and WaPo) is focused on humanities majors at Ivy League universities. Dammit, the engineers, scientists, and programmers who drive our economy are overwhelmingly educated at large public universities. But how often does the mainstream media even acknowledge the existence of these schools? Personally, I don't give a damn where all you lawyers and journalist went to school, what about the engineers??
Two comments:
1. This is quite seriously out of date. 8 years old data with the pandemic in the middle.
2. I’d like to see more about the methodology. Whatever else you think, close to 9 hours of sleep on average doesn’t strike me as plausible.
9 hours of sleep is insane. My daughter is 7 and she get's 10 hours and it seems like SO MUCH SLEEP. 9 in undergrad just doesn't feel possible.
if you're binge drinking, you spend more time asleep to make up for it since the quality of sleep is worse.
As a less elder millennial, I feel like I didn't have to put in that much work to do decently well in my coursework. I would have needed to put in a lot of work to get a 4.0 GPA but was content with a 3.6 (math major, econ minor). It was definitely much easier than my middle and high school teachers were hyping it up to be.
I was also very active in my fraternity (chapter treasurer and president) and school newspaper (sports editor for two years, managing editor for the third), so I still stayed busy.
What are these majors? 1.2 hours a day of classes and 1.6 hours of homework?
I'd generally max out my workload but I'd probably sleep 6 hours average (anywhere from 4-8 hours), have class for 3-6 hours, maybe socialize for 4-5 hours on weekends and 1-3 hours on weekdays, and study for the rest - but often the socializing time was also mixed with studying.
These profiles of Kennedy voters are a lot of fun, and I'm all for heterodox Trump voters going over to his camp. Don't let Big Jab and their candidate Donald "Warp Speed" Trump win, vote Kennedy! https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/04/opinion/rfk-movement-trump.html
1.1? These loser Gen-Z weakling need to spend more time drinking like so: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEwSAvvbzJ4
Interesting. I had about 16 hours a week of lecture, and always went. And problem sets took like another 24 hours per week. I swear that I didn't plan for it to add to 40. I did spread homework across the whole week, so honestly per day it wasn't too much at all...strange how low the numbers seem in this chart.
Wow. As the dad of two college kids I feel much better about the whole thing. My kids are about average engaged college kids! I’m so happy. I’m gonna call one of them right now. I’m sure whichever one I call won’t be studying or in class.
Where the heck are they getting their data? I wish students were getting over 8 hours of sleep a night, but sleep deprivation is a big health issue on campuses. And even if you no homework whatsoever, you will likely be in class ca. 10 hours a week if you are a full time student. Based on those two stats alone, I can't take the rest of this chart seriously. I have two kids in college now - one at a very demanding school and one at a middle of the road one, and these numbers make no sense to me.
My guess is that they are sampling at random points of the year, including when school is not in session, and averaging it all together.
Turns out they don’t do June to September, and they also throw out “holidays” but there’s still probably a good number of non-school-days (at least weekends, also probably finals week, spring break, and maybe the week or two between terms).
https://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2729