From today’s TGIF by Nellie Bowles:

We never meant to imply college kids weren’t brilliant: A study out of Mount Royal University in Canada has found college kids aren’t smarter than the average person of their age anymore. Paper title: “Meta-analysis: On average, undergraduate students’ intelligence is merely average.” See, college kids used to be smarter than the general population, when going into higher education was more of a selective thing. But now that so many people go to college, they’re all just intellectually normal. Which you could easily argue is great: More college for more kids! The paper was accepted for publication in Frontiers in Psychology Cognitive Science. But then the commentary class heard about it, and they did not like this one bit. There was outrage! Are you calling us. . . average? The commentary class may be for equity in theory but in practice they need to be told early and often that they are superior. Not average, which is violence, technically. And so the paper was pulled. I’m completely serious that the reason is: Reviewers felt that saying college kids now are “merely” average is “demeaning.” Everyone gets a trophy. And everyone is above average.