It’s not just you. You’re not imagining things. College graduates are rapidly getting measurably dumber on average.
In a longitudinal sample of 2593 individuals from Minnesota, we investigated whether individuals with IQs ≤ 90 who completed college experienced the same social and economic benefits higher-IQ college graduates did. Although most individuals with IQs ≤ 90 did not have a college degree, the rate at which they completed college had increased approximately 6-fold in men and 10-fold in women relative to rates in the previous generation.
The benefits of a college education among individuals with low levels of general cognitive ability, INTELLIGENCE, May-June 2022
Now that they’ve successfully eliminated the SATs, it won’t be long before the majority of college graduates have sub-90 IQs. Because the smart people of the sort who used to be college attendees will have figured out that there is no piece of paper that is worth being saddled with more than $100,000 in debt.
Unless it’s a winning lottery ticket, of course. And we used to call playing the lottery “the stupid tax”.