In a forthcoming issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education (subscription only, unfortunately), the principal news publication for higher education, Kevin Carey draws attention to a study from CCSSE (Community College Survey of Student Engagement) which, at first look, might appear counterintuitive.

Here’s the gist of it:

Among other things, the survey asks students about the difficulty of their college experience: How hard did you have to work? Did you need to spend significant amounts of time studying? How many textbooks and readings were you assigned? How many long papers did you have to write? Were you asked to accomplished complex tasks like applying theories to practical problems and synthesizing ideas and information in new ways? The answers are combined into a composite measure of “Academic Challenge.”

Cessie has carefully tracked the progress of thousands of students who took the survey. And there turns out to be a significant, positive relationship between academic challenge and the likelihood of students’ getting good grades, earning credits, and graduating — even after controlling for students’ income, prior test scores, and other factors. The same is true for things like student-faculty interaction and student support. The more colleges ask of — and give to — students, the better students perform.

…

The conventional wisdom has reversed the actual relationship between expectations and student outcomes. The operator on the left side of the real formula is a multiplication symbol, not a division line. The idea that lots of students are necessarily washing out of college because faculty members are bravely adhering to high standards, come what may, is mostly a myth. Instead, students are leaving because colleges and faculty members don’t ask enough, and don’t provide the kind of high-quality teaching and support services that students need to meet the challenge. Cessie research suggests, moreover, that the strength of the multiplier varies inversely with the size of P. Academically at-risk students, in other words, are most sensitive to the quality of higher education they receive.

You have to wonder why this would not be true at other levels in education.

Take me to the station
And put me on a train
I’ve got no expectations
To pass through here again.
- No Expectations, Rolling Stones, 1968