My response to everyone saying this must be the professor’s fault: I graduated right before the pandemic, so I don’t know how things changed during the last two years, but I do know that US college students at mid-tier universities are very bad at learning. If I saw a professor at my university take the time to think this hard about why students are failing so badly, then I would trust his performance over the students.

I would say about 85% of the classmates I had (again, right before the pandemic) were completely unwilling to put in any effort to learn whatsoever. It still makes me mad thinking how many students expected grades to be given for nothing. Most wouldn’t study more than 30 minutes for a test and expect to be given a B for “good job you took it” and then go complain in office hours when they failed. Davidson looks to be about the same quality as my university, so i expect their students are similar.

What happens to these 85% students after the pandemic? I suspect they got even more used to doing nothing and expecting a pass.

Please note, just like the professor points out, there are always a minority of students who are very good at learning, who are motivated to learn, and who excel in classes where 80% fail. If a class had 100% failure problem then I’d blame the professor.