Higher-IQ students gain no more cognitive value from college than lower-IQ ones

Evidence

In a study exploring the cognitive “value added” in higher education, Alexander Astin, Director of the American Council on Education, found that there is no evidence that smart high-school seniors learn more in college, despite the fact that they tend to go to “better” institutions. That is, education is something like physical exercise: Some people are more talented than others, but all benefit about equally from athletic involvement and instruction. … Yet available evidence by no means substantiates this view. Of the six statistical studies which address this question, four indicate that schooling is not more productive for the higher-IQ individual; one produced mixed results; and only one supported the traditional view. — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America, 972

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to modern value-added schooling debates and the ‘hot hand’/expertise literature on who gains from training.