Surprise! For the First Time in 100 Years, American IQ Scores Are Dropping

"I can't believe it, Americans are smarter than ever!" said only the idiots and cretins, because they're too stupid to know any better.

A recent study suggests that, for the first time in nearly 100 years, Americans' average intelligence quotient (IQ) is declining.

The professors who authored the study theorize that the quality of education could play a role in reversing the IQ gains enjoyed by previous generations.

The study, published in a spring 2023 edition of Intelligence, measures IQ test results among 18- to 60-year-olds to examine the phenomenon first observed by philosopher James Flynn.

Professors from Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., and the University of Oregon in Eugene explain the Flynn effect: starting in 1932, average IQ scores increased roughly three to five points per decade. In other words, "younger generations are expected to have higher IQ scores than the previous cohort."

Data from the sample of U.S. adults, however, imply that there is a reverse Flynn effect. From 2006 to 2018, the age groups measured generally saw declines in the IQ test used by the study, the International Cognitive Ability Resource (ICAR).

Overall declines held true across age groups after controlling for educational attainment and gender, but the study shows that the loss in cognitive abilities is steeper for younger participants. "[T]he greatest differences in annual scores were observed for 18- to 22-year-olds," the authors write.

Exposure to education, including through obtaining a four-year degree, generally lessened the blow to IQ points. The study suggests, however, that this is less so for younger participants.

In other words, education failed to blunt the fall in IQ among the youngest. Because, of course, they are getting the full "benefits" of CRT participation-trophy Only Your Feelings Are Really Math education.

Very much related: Via Twitchy -- AP declares that it's a "crisis" that young people are deciding to skip out on the Woke Ignorance Factories that are called "institutions of higher learning" only for legacy reasons.

The Associated Press @AP

What first looked like a pandemic blip has turned into a crisis as hundreds of thousands of young people opt to forgo college.

In dozens of interviews with @AP, educators, researchers and students described a generation jaded by education institutions

As more students opt-out of the massive expense to pay for nothing but a piece of paper inscribed with a credential of rapidly-declining value, and as colleges begin losing money and face the horrors of having to trim staff, you know what the next step will be, right?

Certainly not that colleges reform to bring actual value to students. Certainly not that they reduce their prices. Certainly not reducing their payrolls by shedding the huge number of worthless paper-shuffling administrators -- administrators now outnumber actual teachers on almost all college staffs -- especially their value-destroying DEI staffs?

No, good heavens, none of that! How dare I even suggest it!

No, it will be demanded that the US taxpayers give colleges even more money to make up for their shortfall, and pay for almost all of the extraordinarily high tuition they charge, to make wasting time and getting laid in five or six years of "college" so cheap that only the truly disciplined would skip out on it.

posted by Ace at 01:00 PM

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