I'm certainly no expert on anything intelligence-related, but maybe what I'm thinking is that a great deal of intelligence can be crystallized, including the sorts that help people do well in college and succeed at a job. People can be taught how to think and how to learn; higher-aptitude people just do a better job of filling in the blanks for themselves than average people.
Nor am I, but I've done a bit of reading. Arthur Jensen (just google the name) defined two main types of learning abilities: Level I, which related to simple associative learning. If I understand correctly, this means rote learning/memorization of facts, as well as understanding relationships between events. Examples: the war ended in 1945; red lights mean stop.
Level II relates to abstract reasoning and conceptual thought, and their application to problem solving. Level II is closely related to the g factor (g means general intelligence, so this is referring to IQ). Level I abilities seem to be pretty close across the board in people, but Level II differs. This is not surprising, given that general intelligence/IQ differ.
People who lack sufficient Level 2 abilities will have trouble with a classical college education. This is also not surprising, given that you need to reason and solve problems to get a degree in history, economics, or chemistry.
I'm not at all surprised by
Academically Adrift's finding that people who majored in business and other easier subjects didn't score well on tests of complex reasoning skills. If they lacked sufficient Level 2 abilities to begin with, the finding isn't surprising. Alternatively, they wouldn't have picked a major that required complex reasoning ability (this idea reminds me of a recent thread about people leaving STEM majors because they're "too hard." They are too hard for a lot of people!). I'm sorry to say that education majors are in the lower-performing group.
Based on this information, the idea that there is a minimum IQ for getting through a college degree in more traditional subjects makes perfect sense.
