HIGHER EDUCATION….Invisible Adjunct reports today on a group of students at Coppin State College who, having failed to meet the requirements for a master’s degree, filed suit and will now be allowed to graduate anyway.
Ah, America. Now, is this a morality tale about (a) the need for tort reform, (b) declining standards in education, (c) our expanding culture of entitlement, or (d) something or other about today’s young people?
It does remind me, however, of a professor friend of mine who basically has gotten to the point where he virtually never gives a grade of less than C in his classes. “It’s just not worth the hassle,” he says with a sigh.
UPDATE: I should have posted this sooner, but here’s a salient passage from the Chronicle story:
There are two routes by which students can complete a master’s degree in the criminal-justice department at Coppin State. The first includes writing a seminar paper and passing a comprehensive exam. The second option includes writing and presenting an oral defense of a graduate thesis.
According to Mr. Monk, all 10 students who sat for the comprehensive exam on March 15 failed, and the seminar papers those students submitted were far below acceptable quality.
Only one student wrote a thesis, so this means that 10 out of 11 students took the exam and all 10 failed. There is something suspicious about this, and I’m curious to see if we hear more about this.
