IT’S NO SECRET that the American electorate is generally uninformed when it comes to politics–only 61 percent can identify the vice president. And it’s also not a big surprise that students are no exception–a 2000 study discovered that 99 and 98 percent of college seniors could identify Beavis and Butthead and Snoop Dogg, respectively, but only 26 percent could name (from a list of four choices) the purpose of the Emancipation Proclamation, and only 23 percent the “Father of the Constitution.”
What’s more of a mystery is the impact of higher education–which can deplete as much as $200,000 per pupil from the family budget–on students’ actual growth of knowledge in the fundamental area of civics education. That is, up until now. Last Wednesday, survey results unveiled at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. revealed that students learned little, if anything, about American history, government, or economics over the course of their four years in college. This may come as a shock to some, especially those who just wrote out that fall tuition check.
