Posted on 01/19/2006 12:08:36 PM PST by Clint N. Suhks
Nearing a diploma, most college students cannot handle many complex but common tasks, from understanding credit card offers to comparing the cost per ounce of food.
Those are the sobering findings of a study of literacy on college campuses, the first to target the skills of students as they approach the start of their careers.
More than 50 percent of students at four-year schools and more than 75 percent at two-year colleges lacked the skills to perform complex literacy tasks.
That means they could not interpret a table about exercise and blood pressure, understand the arguments of newspaper editorials, compare credit card offers with different interest rates and annual fees or summarize results of a survey about parental involvement in school.
The results cut across three types of literacy: analyzing news stories and other prose, understanding documents and having math skills needed for checkbooks or restaurant tips.
"It is kind of disturbing that a lot of folks are graduating with a degree and they're not going to be able to do those things," said Stephane Baldi, the study's director at the American Institutes for Research, a behavioral and social science research organization.
Most students at community colleges and four-year schools showed intermediate skills, meaning they could perform moderately challenging tasks. Examples include identifying a location on a map, calculating the cost of ordering office supplies or consulting a reference guide to figure out which foods contain a particular vitamin.
There was brighter news.
Overall, the average literacy of college students is significantly higher than that of adults across the nation. Study leaders said that was encouraging but not surprising, given that the spectrum of adults includes those with much less education.
Also, compared with all adults with similar levels of education, college students had superior skills in searching...
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
Well, as long as their self esteem is intact.
hahahaha!
One look at the national debt will leave you wondering just how many adults lack these skills as well.
This may all be true, but at least they know how evil the slave-owning Founding Fathers were, are well versed in Marxism, and are not racist, sexist, homophobes who laugh at handicapped indians.
Thats why you go to college, isn't it?
Ya know, I graduated in '97, and I've never even heard of Chomsky until relatively recently...
It's because they are not prepared for higher education in the first place.
Study: Most College Professors Have Liberal Leaning Agenda. Oh, and Lack Skills.
"Well, as long as their self esteem is intact."
Oooo, good one. So true.
And as long as they "are somebody".
Yeah, but they know the important stuff, like the alcohol content of all beers available in their area. They can calculate the weight, in grams, of a joint, by sight. They can identify 24 brands of condoms by touch, and can locate every bar in town on the map.
It's not so bad...really...
It takes a village.
You know, like nunchuck skills, bowhunting skills, computer
hacking skills... Girls only want boyfriends who have great skills.
Tank yu fer the Fedral guvmint cintrolled educashun...
Ping for an article relevant to a discussion from the other day.
Colleges should teach these basic things, along with a base of good reading, writing, math, analytical and critical thinking skills. But today they are immersed in things like queer studies, liberal activism, and multiculturism, which teach no value.
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