SOURCE: Alleva, Richard. Review of Higher Learning, by John Singleton. Commonweal 122, no. 4 (24 February 1995): 55.

In the following review, Alleva offers a negative assessment of Higher Learning.

When I went to John Singleton's feature debut, Boyz N the Hood, I was expecting sociology, but what I got was a work of art. Higher Learning, his new movie about sexual and racial tensions on campus, is not only sociology, but the most naive, flat-footed sort imaginable. It's a work of good intentions, and these intentions seem to have leached every last ounce of originality out of Singleton and much of his intelligence of well. I can't think of any recent film that extolled so highly the benefits of knowledge and yet displayed such ignorance in every frame, every line of dialogue, and each turn of an utterly mechanical plot—ignorance of the academic scene, ignorance of what makes a drama compelling...