Even more troubling than their lack of factual knowledge is their inability to reason. My interactions with college aged people have been depressing. They simply cannot differentiate between fact and opinion.
I had a very lengthy exchange with a college student about a piece on economics. He said it was the last place to go if you are looking for facts. I asked him to identify a single factual error in the piece. He returned with four, long, grammatically correct paragraphs explaining why he disagreed with the piece. I asked again for a single factual error. He again replied at length, and never even attempted to identify a single factual error. Then, one of his friends chimed in to inform me that I just didn’t get it, and that the piece was wrong.
I don’t know how you fix that.
16+ years of miseducation and that is the result.
Not only are they dumb, they are resolute and righteous about it.