KEY TAKEAWAYS
A recent meta-analysis found that undergraduates’ IQs have steadily fallen from roughly 119 in 1939 to a mean of 102 in 2022, just slightly above the population average of 100. “The decline in students’ IQ is a necessary consequence of increasing educational attainment over the last 80 years,” the researchers commented. “Today, graduating from university is more common than completing high school in the 1940s.” The decline in undergraduate IQs might just be another indication that the worth of a college degree has been hollowed out over time. Ironically, as it became a baseline for employment, a degree has become increasingly meaningless, as more people have one.
KEY TAKEAWAYS A recent meta-analysis found that undergraduates’ IQs have steadily fallen from roughly 119 in 1939 to a mean of 102 in 2022, just slightly above the population average of 100. “The decline in students’ IQ is a necessary consequence of increasing educational attainment over the last 80 years,” the researchers commented. “Today, graduating from university is more common than completing high school in the 1940s.” The decline in undergraduate IQs might just be another indication that the worth of a college degree has been hollowed out over time. Ironically, as it became a baseline for employment, a degree has become increasingly meaningless, as more people have one.
Ironically, as it became a baseline for employment, being literate has become increasingly meaningless, as more people can read and write.