We all know the cost of attending college continues to grow at an alarmingly rapid clip, but just what are students—and the parents often footing the bill—actually getting for their money? Often, not much, according to new research. According to a study by sociologists Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa, 45 percent of undergraduate students “did not demonstrate any significant improvement in learning” during their freshman and sophomore years; 36 percent failed to show any improvement in four years of higher education. The problem, according to Arum and Roksa, is that the college experience often doesn’t have a whole lot to do with education. Many students devote a great deal of time to fraternities and sororities, sporting activities, socializing and attending those infamous college parties—shunning challenging schedules in favor of easier ones. Students who did take harder classes and spent more time studying, not surprisingly, showed significant improvement in their test scores and ability to learn. Students, of course, shoulder the lion’s share of the blame if they’re not getting the education they and their parents are paying for, but sociologists Laura Hamilton and Elizabeth Armstrong believe the institutions themselves are partly at fault. Many, they write in their book Paying for the Party are “catering to the social and educational needs of affluent, full-freight students at the expense of others…” (Time)

Paul Asay has covered religion for The Washington Post, Christianity Today, Beliefnet.com and The (Colorado Springs) Gazette. He writes about culture for Plugged In and wrote the Batman book God on the Streets of Gotham (Tyndale). He lives in Colorado Springs with wife, Wendy, and two children. Follow him on Twitter.