Well, maybe the problem is the entire model of college education, which comes to us from medieval times when a young gentleman could go to university, and come home after a few years with a sizable fraction of all human knowledge. Today people have to keep learning all their lives. Why does college education have to look the way it does? Rather than contemplating dumbing down the current system, I think it makes sense to ask whether a different but equally rigorous system might be more successful.
From what I've seen, many people enter college well before they've grown up. That is not necessarily a moral failing, in fact it strikes me as irrational to expect somebody to be as mature at eighteen as he will be at twenty-two. What happens is we send everyone to college at seventeen or eighteen as a kind of experiment to see if they're ready, and obviously many are not ready to get their degree in four years. The result is that ultimate success at university is often related to the affluence of the student's parents, not necessarily the student's ultimate potential. If a student needs another semester to finish, and has no family resources to draw upon, he's stuck. I once knew a guy who was a mediocre student but had a very rich father. His dad pulled some strings so the guy could get into a master's program in public health when he was thirty or so, and from their the guy went on to earn his MD in his late 30s. Yet despite how unfair this was to other people (e.g. to the person who lost his place in med school), this guy went on to be a distinguished surgeon. In this case the exception carved out by money and influence allowed someone to reach his full potential.
I also have a strong suspicion that the brain continues to develop in certain ways well into the 20s. When I went into MIT at 17 years of age I was pretty good at math, but I feel strongly that my natural aptitude for mathematics continued to improve until I was in my late 20s. I'm also reasonably certain that many brains entering college at seventeen and eighteen have not finished developing what psychologists call "executive control functions": being able to direct attention, to control impulses to weigh the present effort against the future rewards.
I just don't think four year university right after high school works for everyone. Nor does it get the most out of many of the people who do manage make it through, but not with distinction. Some people who struggle through four years and make it out by the skin of their teeth might pass with distinction if they just started their college career two or three years later, whether that reflects life experience, brain biology or some mix.
But if the problem is that the design of the current system doesn't meet everyone's needs, then dumbing it down is the worst possible choice. The system *still* wouldn't work for the people it currently doesn't serve well, but the people it *does* serve well are cheated. On the other hand it makes no sense to shortchange students who might have equal potential but don't fit the current system, either because they need a few years seasoning or don't have the money to cushion them through a tight spot.
I'd like to see options that are equally or more rigorous, but more diverse. I'd like to see some students earn their bachelors over six years or even eight years, paying for their with co-op work or national service. Stretching out education this way would in itself would allow students to bring more life experience to classes in social sciences, literature and business management.
I'd also like to see the end of the expectation that somebody can get a bachelor's degree at twenty-one years, and coast on those credentials until he's sixty-five. I'd like to see degrees expire unless you show you've continued to learn into your thirties or beyond.
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