According to the survey, the average full-time college student spends only 2.76 hours a day on education-related activities. This includes both class time and studying. Meanwhile, the average student spends 4.4 hours per day in leisure activities, not including shopping, grooming, personal care, housework, cooking, or eating.
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Presumably that's spread over 7 days, but still, discouraging.
ReplyDeleteThe article itself is an interesting mishmash of things with which I wholeheartedly agree (hey! it cites the 2-3 hours of prep per credit hour rule!) and glaring omissions, the most glaring of which is the portrait of the university as an institution devoted to perpetuating a cushy life for students and an ever-growing coterie of administrators -- and, oh yes, faculty, who are barely mentioned, and, when they are, are assumed to partake in the same benefits. There's no mention whatsoever of Annie and the rest of the 70%+ (heck, in this case, you can round that up to 100% or close, since there's no question that most tenure-track proffies are working too hard at something -- teaching, research, service, getting grants, answering administrative inquiries -- to fully enjoy the leisurely lifestyle the article portrays).
I'd also like to see a breakdown of the lives of students who work (or have substantial family responsibilities) during the term. I suspect this is a case where creating an "average" picture out of a pool of data reflecting widely divergent experiences is not particularly informative (but may be useful if one wants to create a scary picture in order to bash the supposedly over-funded higher-ed sector).
The Heritage Foundation Study to which the Federalist article links actually does a better job of breaking down the relationships between time spent on school work and work-work. I don't have time to read it in detail right now, but, while I don't think I agree with its conclusions (taxpayers are subsidizing lazy students seems to be the gist, with the implied suggestion that this should stop), the patterns look interesting, and might be worth a closer look to see if we, based on our experience with students in various situations, have some alternative explanations/suggestions.
DeleteLess than 3 hours a day and it INCLUDED class time? When do I register?
ReplyDeleteThe teachers always help students to earn their knowledge and make their lessons regularly. But when some teachers do some wrong then more of them teachers got wrong near people. So teachers take care of themselves regularly.
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