
A recent study indicates that, for the first time in a century, Americans’ IQ has fallen. The professors who conducted the study suspect the declining quality of education may be reversing the IQ gains experienced by prior generations.
The study, published in the spring 2023 edition of Intelligence, measured IQ test results among 18- to 60-year-olds to see if Americans are still experiencing the phenomenon of rising IQ observed by philosopher James Flynn. The authors, who are professors at Northwestern University and the University of Oregon,
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…generally lessened the blow to IQ points. The study suggests, however, that this is less so for younger participants. “[E]xposure to education may only be protective for certain age groups,” according to the authors.
The study notes that “a change of quality or content of education” may explain the lower benefit young people get from education compared to their elders. There has been enormous grade inflation over the past generation.
Many students learn little in college and can’t write coherently when they graduate. Nearly half of the nation’s undergraduates learned almost nothing in their first two years in college over a decade ago, according to a 2011 study by New York University’s Richard Arum and others. Thirty-six percent learned little even by graduation.
“In recent decades, the intelligence quotient of university students and university graduates dropped to the average of the general population,” notes science writer Rolf Degen. “The results” of a recent study in Frontiers of Psychology “show that the average IQ of undergraduate students today is a mere 102 IQ points and declined by approximately 0.2 IQ points per year” since the mid-20th Century.
The authors of the study in Intelligence noted that “scores were lower for more recent participants across all levels of education…this might suggest that…the caliber of education has decreased.”