College students don't spend much time studying
- Joanne Jacobs
- May 2
- 1 min read
College students don't work very hard these days, write Rick Hess and Greg Fournier of the Manhattan Institute. Full-time students say they average 20 to 25 hours of class time and studying each week, and some estimates are even lower. Thirty-five hours a week would be a reasonable amount of time, according to traditional measures.
They're not more likely to have paying jobs than earlier generations, research shows. In 2024, the average first-year student reported spending 5.3 hours per week in campus activities and clubs, 9.3 hours working for pay and 11.9 hours relaxing and socializing.
Yet most think they're working hard. "Sixty-four percent of four-year college students say that they put 'a lot' of effort into schoolwork, yet only 6 percent report spending more than 20 hours per week studying and doing homework," Hess and Fournier write. As a result of the low-expectations culture, "students are not getting the opportunity to master the work habits, knowledge, or skills that a college education is supposed to provide."
Professors complain that students complain about what used to be a normal reading load and normal writing assignments. Everything's too hard, they say. But used to inflated grades in high school in college, they expect to get A's.
One reason English teachers assign short excerpts rather than whole books is that students won't do the reading at home, writes Meredith Coffey, a former high school English teacher. Teachers are urged to have students read together in class, then discuss challenging material. But there isn't time for lengthy readings in class.
And your next post is about how students view college ss a waste of time and not worth the money. Coincidence?
I've taught at colleges where the adjuncts were warned about not passing a certain percentage of the students in their classes. If the pass rate dropped too low, the administration simply wouldn't give them classes to teach. The message was quite clear - pass the students, keep the federal aid money flowing into the college, and nobody had to lose income. Don't pass them, and you will not only lose classes, you will be blackballed. 70% of profs at colleges are adjunct. Everyone knows how the game is played, except maybe the students.
The sample used for this study needs to be examined closely and compared to whatever the sample was in the past. For example, the 9 hours per week working seems too high if it only includes full time students at Columbia, Barnard and NYU. If it includes only first year students at community college work full time and attend classes at night it seems too low.
Nor are they learning how to live poor. Youtuber Lindybeige did great rant 10 years ago as to why college students should be "poor", i.e., on a tight budget, for their school time.
School is suppose to be a time when you do things the hard way. You do the math longhand, you do the drafting with pen and paper before going to CAD, etc. That is the way you learn the intricacies rather than just being a button pusher.