Improving undergraduate learning: findings and policy recommendations from the SSRC-CLA Longitudinal Project

At the beginning of the 21st century, increasing and ensuring individual access to college presents itself not just as a moral imperative, but an economic necessity. As employment opportunities in manufacturing continue to grow scarcer in the United States, both individual and national global economic competitiveness requires mastery of what many commentators have termed '21st century skills'. These skills, generally thought uniformly taught at US colleges and universities, are defined as including critical thinking, complex reasoning, and written communication. But what if sending...  [+] Show more

At the beginning of the 21st century, increasing and ensuring individual access to college presents itself not just as a moral imperative, but an economic necessity. As employment opportunities in manufacturing continue to grow scarcer in the United States, both individual and national global economic competitiveness requires mastery of what many commentators have termed '21st century skills'. These skills, generally thought uniformly taught at US colleges and universities, are defined as including critical thinking, complex reasoning, and written communication. But what if sending students to college did not necessarily ensure that much was learned once there? What if at the beginning of the 21st century many colleges and universities were not focused primarily on undergraduate learning, but instead had become distracted by other institutional functions and goals? We have systematically investigated the state of undergraduate learning in contemporary colleges and universities. Following several thousand traditional-age students as they enrolled in coursework from Fall 2005 to Spring 2009, across a wide range of four-year colleges and universities, we found a set of conditions suggesting that something indeed is seriously amiss in US higher education. This report documents the rate of growth on the [Collegiate Learning Assessment] CLA for the full four years of college, academic practices associated with improved student performance, as well as differences across individuals and institutions in the level of learning. Moreover, we present recommendations for policymakers, institutions, and practitioners to consider for improving undergraduate learning at US colleges and universities.

Edited excerpt from publication.