Should Civics Knowledge Be a College Graduation Requirement?

Purdue President Mitch Daniels thinks so.

From an Inside Higher Ed article

File it under “possible ways to save the republic”? Purdue University may soon require that all undergraduates, from art historians to wildlife biologists, take and pass a civics test to obtain their degrees.

A number of other institutions have some kind of civics requirement. Purdue’s proposed “Test+” model is unique, however, in that it would mandate that all students pass a test and demonstrate their knowledge of U.S. history, laws and institutions in some other way. Possible options for completing the second part of the requirement are taking an approved course, completing a specially designed learning module from the campus’s 250,000-plus-hour C-SPAN archives and participating in or attending relevant events or experiences (the university’s current speaker series on Democracy, Civility and Freedom of Expression might qualify, for example).

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