I have a 1.8 GPA, I made an 1170 on my SAT, and my IQ tested at 138 when I was in sixth grade and it hasn't been tested since but my parents test in the low 140's and I assume mine is roughly the same. In any case, those numbers shouldn't be next to each other. My grade point average doesn't reflect my capacity to learn, my work ethic, or anything honest about how educated of a person I am. I'm autistic, have high anxiety, and past trauma, but the accommodations office at my college did not offer anything that could help. I am not saying the college isn't trying and the office helps many people, just not with my issues.
The case I'm about to make is radical but I believe is the next step in the progress of educational theory and has been tried and kept at many colleges, including a college I went to. Before I begin, on the surface, to people unfamiliar with the colleges that have done this, the case will initially look simple-minded, self-serving, and absurd, but it's not. The first college I attended was The Evergreen State College, at Evergreen, they had abolished grades. This was not a college where people didn't work hard academically, or didn't learn the material, they did and they did. The system they set up was so that the professor gaged what the student had learned when reading their papers and had an oral evaluation to see if they actually had learned the material. If you learned the material and cared about the subject then you'd get credit. If there was some massive trauma in your life and you missed a lot of work, then you would probably have an extra semester but you could continue and there was no fear flunking out.
The system worked much better because instead of trying to conform to a rubric or trying to remember the material for an exam, the students were expected to learn in a way that they actually added to their personal canon of knowledge and wisdom. By the end of their four years, they were better educated than the typical graduate of a mainstream college. The basic idea is that less statistical and more holistic results in a better education.
The Evergreen system also had basically abolished lectures, this is beginning to happen at mainstream colleges, in favor of seminar-type classes. When students are actively engaged with the subject rather than passively taking notes, they have to commit the material to their personal canon for use in the discussion rather than recording the lecture to memorize before the exam. In the Evergreen system, you can't to an all-nighter before an evaluation. You have to know the material beforehand and demonstrate that you actually understand the concepts.
Trying to understand the material is more intellectual effort but it's less stressful than the alternative, there's a lot less anxiety and fear. For the record, I've never had a drink, done drugs, or had sex. I refuse to do the first two and for the latter, I'm waiting until I'm married. With that said, most of the people at Evergreen didn't indulge themselves out of desperation, it was more just for a little fun, at my current college, people drink mostly to cope with pain. The authorities see it as college kids being college kids but it's actually sadder than that, the students are routinely very stressed and anxious, if the signs around campus signify something, then it's pretty bad. The college has a massive effort to combat suicide and anxiety, and are evermore trying to be a “Safe-place”. By the way, the safe place mentality is Orwellian and creates more fear than it reduces, weakens people, and creates unworthy victims. Anyway, these solutions don't cure the cause, they address the effect. What needs to happen is a cultural shift from statistical to holistic, from artificial to organic.
Lastly, if you speak to the students at Evergreen versus the students at my college, for the most part, the students at Evergreen are smarter, for lack of a better term. If you try to strike up an intelligent conversation with a student at my college, they may be articulate and dress like yuppies or preppies but they're not that bright, at Evergreen, they were much brighter and you could easily have deep and enjoyable conversations with people because at the mainstream colleges, the kids learn how to be professional and focus on their field, at a place like Evergreen, they, much more, are cultured and educated human beings.
I am not in favor of a total transformation into an Evergreen-type system but I am in favor of adopting it's basic aspects for the mainstream college system because I believe it will create a truly more educated, populace and make people generally better people.