It’s worth noting, too, that before college these students scored on average in the 60%ile on the ACT. We might argue about how meaningful that really is, but 75 years ago most of them would not have attended college at all, and 50 years before that many would not have graduated or even gone to high school.

One obvious consequence of expanding access to higher education that everybody always acts shocked by is that you’re going to have a harder time comparing students of today with students of way back when.