[lbo-talk] How Much Do College Students Learn, and Study?

[Doug Henwood]

Ok, so I asked my uncle-in-law, Christopher "Sandy" Jencks (who knows lots about this stuff) whether I was right that even after controlling for family income, test scores and other academic indicators predict life outcomes. Here's his response:


> Yes, test scores (mostly math scores, actually) do seem to predict adult economic success independent of family background, partly because they predict how much schooling people get, but also partly because they predict performance in a lot of jobs, and relatedly, because they predict how long it takes people to become competent both at the things schools try to teach and the things employers (eg the military, which generates the  most data) try to teach soldiers to do.

Doug