College graduates are getting an ‘F’ in the real world

The useful part

Connie serves on the board of Davidsonians for Freedom of Thought and Discourse, an alumni group that supports free inquiry and sponsors student organizations including Young Americans for Freedom and Turning Point USA. Although she majored in biology, her work with DFTD and other campus groups led her to the Oversight Project in Washington, D.C. Higher education is failing to prepare too many students for demanding careers and responsible citizenship.

How it works

• The answer is not to replace progressive indoctrination with conservative indoctrination.
• For nearly 40 years, her career has involved preparing, interviewing, and placing college graduates in their first jobs.
• One employer told her that of five Davidson graduates it had hired, two had been fired within 18 months and a third was on probation.
• She also found fewer students eager to test themselves at the start of their careers.
• At Davidson, a DFTD review of public voter registration records found that 3.17% of faculty were registered Republicans, compared with 46.03% registered Democrats.

What to take from it

She saw a growing share of seniors arrive less engaged and less prepared. Party registration is not a complete measure of ideology, of course, but the imbalance is hard to...

Details worth keeping

Hannah interned with DFTD during her senior year, where we met. It is to restore the conditions under which education can do its job. By 2020, retention among some of her placements had fallen sharply.