If you listen to college administrators long enough, you might start to believe that the biggest problem facing academia is diversity. Aside from changing their recruitment and acceptance strategies, many universities are tackling this issue by requiring students to fulfill a diversity requirement. While the debate still rages on about the overall value of diversity courses, a more pressing dilemma faces higher education and society at large.
Students are graduating without solid writing skills.
According to Primary Research Group, nearly one third of college students haven’t written a paper that is 10 pages or longer. The trend ultimately varies depending on major. Those majoring in one of the social sciences (psychology, sociology, political science, and anthropology) were more likely to have written a major paper than, say, business or engineering majors, yet the importance of written communication transcends disciplines.
According to a study by the American Association of Colleges and Universities, four in five employers say they would be more likely to consider a candidate who completed multiple courses that included major writing assignments. About 82 percent of employers rate “the ability to effectively communicate in writing” as an 8, 9 or 10 on a 10-point scale. Regardless of the position, the writing skills are a necessity, and our education system is failing to deliver.
This trend is symptomatic of a larger issue. Our nation’s colleges lack proper writing instruction and opportunities for students to refine their skills. Ideally, students should know how to write before they get to college, but this often isn’t the case. Talk to any “freshman comp” lecturer, and they’ll tell you how painful it is to teach this basic writing course. Students have glided through their high school English classes without having to write coherent prose, and it shows.
It doesn’t help that the essay portion of the SAT and ACT has never been an application requirement at most institutions, which have opted to include their own personal statement prompts or no writing component at all. Unfortunately, personal statements are not always written by the applicant and are subject to the bias of an admissions officer (instead of an unbiased College Board grader).
Once students get to college, many professors don’t bother to teach them how to write clear prose.
“First-semester writing courses now cover rhetorical strategies, research, awareness of audience, youth civic activism — everything except the production of clear sentences,” observes Valerie Strauss, an education writer for the Washington Post. Strauss recommends that universities start from the ground up, teaching readability instead of jumping straight to rhetorical strategies.
This is easier said than done. Based on the amount of time allocated in course requirements, this is a challenge for any professor. However, that doesn’t mean that administrators can’t alter the curriculum flowchart to better address the demands of the workforce. In most cases, they are already altering it to add diversity courses.
The public will continue to look at the higher education system with skepticism as students continue to graduate without much writing experience. The solution is straight-forward: It simply needs to become a priority.
Brendan Pringle (@BrendanPringle) is a freelance journalist in California. He is a National Journalism Center graduate and formerly served as a development officer for Young America’s Foundation at the Reagan Ranch.
