Good, that means more people are getting an education. I’ve seen too many hot takes online from people who attended college and vastly benefited from college who tell others that university isn’t as great as you think, go to trade school and learn something practical, etc…with a complete and utter lack of self-awareness or sense of irony.
<i>The results show that the average IQ of undergraduate students today is a mere 102 IQ points and declined by approximately 0.2 IQ points per year. The students' IQ also varies substantially across universities and is correlated with the selectivity of universities (measured by average SAT scores of admitted students)</i><p>this is not too surprising and is generally assumed to be true given that high school grads subsequently then go to college, in which the attrition rate is high. Now do college grads, and the IQ goes up markedly. I think the 110+ figure has always been assumed for grads, not merely students.
The idea of college being a way to connect remarkable people with resources has always seemed sort of suspect. Remarkable people seem to find their own way; it's the rest of us that need a structural on-ramp to the professional or intellectual classes. If anything, credentialism is a roadblock for true geniuses, but it's also a necessary evil, in that regard, in order to protect the public from charlatans.
That should be a good thing right? At least the way I read is: "undergraduates college maps to normal demographic distribution" which should reflect the result of more access to higher ed
Also of interest is the reallocation. For example, in the military, you can see the flight of Blue/elite America from the military in the steadily-dropping GCT scores: <a href="https://ndupress.ndu.edu/Portals/68/Images/jfq/jfq-81/cancian-figure1.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://ndupress.ndu.edu/Portals/68/Images/jfq/jfq-81/cancia...</a> Every year in this graph starting 1980, it goes down a hair on average.<p>(Yeah, I know there's some guys who claim it's due solely to a change in test procedure in the 1990s, but if they're right, you sure can't see it in the graph there...)
I believe a similar research study was done on HN where they asked HN people what their IQ was and actually measured it.<p>I vaguely recall the average guessed IQ was 120 or 130 while the actual IQ was around 100 which is similar to this study. In a nutshell the conclusion was that people on HN like to think they're smarter than average and like to up vote articles on IQ when in reality HNers are just average.<p>I can't find the study anymore. But I remember seeing it somewhere.
Who came up with the idea that intelligence could be distilled down into a single number (IQ), and why is such an obviously flawed concept still bandied about in the modern era?<p>Nobody tries to do this with physical capabilities - assign a single score to someone's physical capabilities - because gains in one area, e.g. strength training with the goal of increasing muscle mass, are counterproductive in other areas, e.g. long-distance running. A generalized fitness score for an individual would tell you very little about their real-world capabilities.<p>In general, the whole idea of scoring IQ smells of eugenic theories of inherited intellectual capabilities, designed to promote concepts such as 'minority populations are genetic inferiors so educating them is a waste of effort'.<p>Fundamentally, mental abilities are just as trainable as physical abilities are, and if you want to discover individuals with unique mental and physical capabilities, you don't want to eliminate anyone from the pool of candidates based on non-correlating factors like race, sex, ethnicity, etc.
Findings (paraphrased):<p>1 - students are no longer extraordinary but merely average<p>2 - employers can no longer rely on applicants with university degrees to be more capable or smarter than those without degrees<p>3 - acceptance into university is no longer an invitation to join an elite group<p>4 - estimating IQ based on educational attainment is vastly inaccurate<p>5 - obsolete IQ data/tests ought not to be used to make high-stakes decisions about individuals
I dont think this dispels any myths and the study is scant on details. I wager that IQ results will be significantly influenced by faculty (major/specialization). Today there is a much greater range of university majors. And of course also the university you attend. Today there are too many "universities", some worse than trade schools.
I would be interested to know about their executive function and self-regulation skills. The ability to plan, focus attention, remember instructions, working memory, mental flexibility.
<i>The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.</i><p>Haha, smart way to gain traction even if the final paper turns out to tell a completely different story from the abstract..
TL;DR – merely going to university doesn't mean you are smart considering how low the barriers to entry have become, BUT going to a prestigious/selective university still does.
My intuition is that this finding is correct. This is dangerous; in the social sciences, results that match your intuition will most likely have garbage methodology that does not support their conclusions [1].<p>I haven't read the study yet to confirm this, but the abstract is unencouraging:<p>> We conducted a meta-analysis of the mean IQ scores of college and university students samples tested with Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale between 1939 and 2022.<p>Wechsler first published the WAIS in 1955.<p>[1] This is similar to results that conflict with your intuition; in those cases the studies will most likely have garbage methodology that does not support their conclusion.
I genuinely don't understand how analyses like this one are taken at face value but then media turns around and argues that IQ is primarily a result of environmental, not genetic factors. If it's environmental, then shouldn't going to university substantially increase these students' IQs? In general, going to university means you're exiting whatever culture/family system you grew up in. And, the whole point is to educate you.<p>Point being, why doesn't research like this immediately get canceled for being anti-whomever?