The Coming Crisis in Citizenship: Higher Education's Failure to Teach America's History and Institutions

This unprecedented study of more than 14,000 randomly selected students from across the country reveals that colleges and universities, including some of the most expensive and elite in the United States, are failing to add to their graduates' understanding of America's history and essential institutions. The study, the largest scientifically valid survey ever conducted to measure student learning of these subjects at colleges and universities, was administered by the University of Connecticut's Department of Public Policy (UConnDPP) on behalf of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI).

College freshmen and seniors at 50 of the nation's colleges and universities were asked 60 multiple choice questions about (1) America's history; (2) government; (3) America and the world; and (4) the market economy. The average overall score for college seniors was 53.2 percent, just 1.5 percent higher than the average overall score for freshmen, which was 51.7 percent. Both scores represent failure by a wide margin on a traditional grading scale. More significantly, the results demonstrate that colleges and universities are failing to teach students about their
country's history and founding principles. At 16 of the schools, the freshmen actually scored higher than the seniors.
 
The report also offers the first-ever ranking of U.S. colleges based on the learning added to or subtracted from college students' knowledge of America's history and institutions.