Read Online The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life by Richard J. Herrnstein, Charles A. Murray - Free Book Online
Authors: Richard J. Herrnstein, Charles A. Murray
Tags: United States, General, science, Social Science, History, Psychology, Sociology, Political Science, Education, Life Sciences, Genetics & Genomics, Educational Psychology, Intelligence Levels - United States, Nature and Nurture, Intelligence Levels - Social Aspects - United States, Intellect, Intelligence Levels
efficiently, and then it was further sorted among the colleges.
THE COLLEGE POPULATION GROWS
A social and economic gap separated high school graduates from college graduates in 1900 as in 1990; that much is not new. But the social and economic gap was not accompanied by much of a cognitive gap, because the vast majority of the brightest people in the United States had not gone to college. We may make that statement despite the lack of IQ scores from 1900 for the same reason that we can make such statements about Elizabethan England: It is true by mathematical necessity. In 1900, only about 2 percent of 23-year-olds got college degrees. Even if all of the 2 percent who went to college had IQs of 115 and above (and they did not), seven out of eight of the brightest 23-year-olds in the America of 1900 would have been without college degrees. This situation barely changed for the first two decades of the new century. Then, at the close of World War I, the role of college for American youths began an expansion that would last until 1974, interrupted only by the Great Depression and World War II.
The three lines in the figure show trends established in 1920-1929, 1935-1940, and 1954-1973, then extrapolated. They are there to highlightthe three features of the figure worth noting. First, the long perspective serves as a counterweight to the common belief that the college population exploded suddenly after World War II. It certainly exploded in the sense that the number of college students went from a wartime trough to record highs, but this is because two generations of college students were crowded onto campuses at one time. In terms of trendlines, World War II and its aftermath was a blip, albeit a large blip. When this anomalous turmoil ended in the mid-1950s, the proportion of people getting college degrees was no higher than would have been predicted from the trends established in the 1920s or the last half of the 1930s (which are actually a single trend interrupted by the worst years of the depression).
In the twentieth century, the prevalence of the college degree goes from one in fifty to a third of the population
Sources:
1900-1959: U.S. Bureau of the Census 1975, H751-765. 1960-1992:
DES,
1992, Table 229.
The second notable feature of the figure is the large upward tilt in the trendline from the mid-1950s until 1974. That it began when it did—the Eisenhower years—comes as a surprise. The GI bill’s impact had faded and the postwar baby boom had not yet reached college age. Presumably postwar prosperity had something to do with it, but the explanation cannot be simple. The slope remained steep in periods as different as Eisenhower’s late 1950s, LBJ’s mid-1960s, and Nixon’s early 1970s.
After 1974 came a peculiar plunge in college degrees that lasted until 1981—peculiar because it occurred when the generosity of scholarships and loans, from colleges, foundations, and government alike, was at its peak. This period of declining graduates was then followed by a steep increase from 1981 to 1990—also peculiar, in that college was becoming harder to afford for middle-class Americans during those years. As of 1990, the proportion of students getting college degrees had more than made up for the losses during the 1970s and had established a new record, with B.A.s and B.S.s being awarded in such profusion that they amounted to 30 percent of the 23-year-old population.
MAKING GOOD ON THE IDEAL OF OPPORTUNITY
At first glance, we are telling a story of increasing democracy and intermingling, not of stratification. Once upon a time, the college degree was the preserve of a tiny minority; now almost a third of each new cohort of youths earns it. Surely, it would seem, this must mean that a broader range of people is going to college—including people with a broader, not narrower, range of cognitive ability. Not so. At the same time that many more young people were going to college, they were also
THE COLLEGE POPULATION GROWS
A social and economic gap separated high school graduates from college graduates in 1900 as in 1990; that much is not new. But the social and economic gap was not accompanied by much of a cognitive gap, because the vast majority of the brightest people in the United States had not gone to college. We may make that statement despite the lack of IQ scores from 1900 for the same reason that we can make such statements about Elizabethan England: It is true by mathematical necessity. In 1900, only about 2 percent of 23-year-olds got college degrees. Even if all of the 2 percent who went to college had IQs of 115 and above (and they did not), seven out of eight of the brightest 23-year-olds in the America of 1900 would have been without college degrees. This situation barely changed for the first two decades of the new century. Then, at the close of World War I, the role of college for American youths began an expansion that would last until 1974, interrupted only by the Great Depression and World War II.
The three lines in the figure show trends established in 1920-1929, 1935-1940, and 1954-1973, then extrapolated. They are there to highlightthe three features of the figure worth noting. First, the long perspective serves as a counterweight to the common belief that the college population exploded suddenly after World War II. It certainly exploded in the sense that the number of college students went from a wartime trough to record highs, but this is because two generations of college students were crowded onto campuses at one time. In terms of trendlines, World War II and its aftermath was a blip, albeit a large blip. When this anomalous turmoil ended in the mid-1950s, the proportion of people getting college degrees was no higher than would have been predicted from the trends established in the 1920s or the last half of the 1930s (which are actually a single trend interrupted by the worst years of the depression).
In the twentieth century, the prevalence of the college degree goes from one in fifty to a third of the population
Sources:
1900-1959: U.S. Bureau of the Census 1975, H751-765. 1960-1992:
DES,
1992, Table 229.
The second notable feature of the figure is the large upward tilt in the trendline from the mid-1950s until 1974. That it began when it did—the Eisenhower years—comes as a surprise. The GI bill’s impact had faded and the postwar baby boom had not yet reached college age. Presumably postwar prosperity had something to do with it, but the explanation cannot be simple. The slope remained steep in periods as different as Eisenhower’s late 1950s, LBJ’s mid-1960s, and Nixon’s early 1970s.
After 1974 came a peculiar plunge in college degrees that lasted until 1981—peculiar because it occurred when the generosity of scholarships and loans, from colleges, foundations, and government alike, was at its peak. This period of declining graduates was then followed by a steep increase from 1981 to 1990—also peculiar, in that college was becoming harder to afford for middle-class Americans during those years. As of 1990, the proportion of students getting college degrees had more than made up for the losses during the 1970s and had established a new record, with B.A.s and B.S.s being awarded in such profusion that they amounted to 30 percent of the 23-year-old population.
MAKING GOOD ON THE IDEAL OF OPPORTUNITY
At first glance, we are telling a story of increasing democracy and intermingling, not of stratification. Once upon a time, the college degree was the preserve of a tiny minority; now almost a third of each new cohort of youths earns it. Surely, it would seem, this must mean that a broader range of people is going to college—including people with a broader, not narrower, range of cognitive ability. Not so. At the same time that many more young people were going to college, they were also
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