Whether our college students are “Academically Adrift,” as sociologists Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa claim in their book of the same name, or academically delayed, as I suggested in last week’s column, it’s clear they are hitting the books with less frequency now than a generation ago. How did this happen? Arum and Roksa point out that access to higher education has been a focus for decades, and that quality has become secondary. More than 90 percent of high school students expect to be able to go to college, transforming higher education “from a privilege to a presumed right.” Over 70 percent of recent high school graduates have enrolled in two- or four-year colleges, which begs the question: Are those students ready for this access to higher learning?

The book claims they are frequently not ready, a situation perpetuated by a lack of rigor in many college courses. Part of the problem is that professors are rewarded for research more than teaching ability, and with little reward for assigning projects or papers, professors give students high grades for little work — keeping student evaluations high and their workload low.