College kids lack skills? This report says so.

[chagrin]

This doesn't suprise me, seeing how everyone seems to be more focused on how they look, what clothes they wear and what they drive rather than education.

story


WASHINGTON (AP) — 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% of students at four-year schools and more than 75% 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 and using information from texts and documents.

"But do they do well enough for a highly educated population? For a knowledge-based economy? The answer is no," said Joni Finney, vice president of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, an independent and non-partisan group.

"This sends a message that we should be monitoring this as a nation, and we don't do it," Finney said. "States have no idea about the knowledge and skills of their college graduates."

The survey examined college and university students nearing the end of their degree programs. The students did the worst on matters involving math, according to the study.

Almost 20% of students pursuing four-year degrees had only basic quantitative skills. For example, the students could not estimate if their car had enough gas to get to the service station. About 30% of two-year students had only basic math skills.

Baldi and Finney said the survey should be used as a tool. They hope state leaders, educators and university trustees will examine the rigor of courses required of all students.

The survey showed a strong relationship between analytic coursework and literacy. Students in two-year and four-year schools scored higher when they took classes that challenged them to apply theories to practical problems or weigh competing arguments.

The college survey used the same test as the National Assessment of Adult Literacy, the government's examination of English literacy among adults. The results of that study were released in December, showing about one in 20 adults is not literate in English.

On campus, the tests were given in 2003 to a representative sample of 1,827 students at public and private schools. The Pew Charitable Trusts funded the survey.

It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

[Chiefs Pantalones]

This is totally false. I am learning really hard math in college. Me + 2 girls = 3. Sexual Calculus.

[Dunit35]

Yeah Im learning a lot in college too. I just learned last semester about STD's and even got to see pictures of them. That was some of the grossest pictures I have ever seen.

[Eleazar]

Can someone read this article to me?

[Chiefs Pantalones]

I think Gen eds are what should be taught in high school, then once you get to college, you can hit the ground running to get your BA/BS. Gen Eds in college are a waste of time, although...some still need them, because like some posters already mentioned, they let anyone into college anymore, kids that have the reading level of a first grader. I think that's great, if you wanna go, do it, but I think more than a few of the kids are doing it just for the experience, not for the education (like the girls, the drinking, etc.).

Hey, it's their money, heh.

[KCChiefsMan]

Originally Posted by Dunit35

Yeah Im learning a lot in college too. I just learned last semester about STD's and even got to see pictures of them. That was some of the grossest pictures I have ever seen.

try observing and digging through cadavers. I wasn't grossed out by it, but I smelled pretty rough after class was over. That was actually the most interesting class I've had though, our GA actually brought in a copperhead snake and threw it on the floor just to show off.......true story

[Dunit35]

Originally Posted by Vanilla Thunder

I think Gen eds are what should be taught in high school, then once you get to college, you can hit the ground running to get your BA/BS. Gen Eds in college are a waste of time, although...some still need them, because like some posters already mentioned, they let anyone into college anymore, kids that have the reading level of a first grader. I think that's great, if you wanna go, do it, but I think more than a few of the kids are doing it just for the experience, not for the education (like the girls, the drinking, etc.).

Hey, it's their money, heh.

Well I had 21 college credit hours when I went into college. English comp 1 and 2. Introduction to literature, general physcology, and a computer class. Some of my friends had 30-40 hours before going to school. Some of the classes they make people take in college for their Gen Eds are kind of stupid. I went to college after personally realizing I did not want to work at a pizza restaurant for the rest of my life.

[Chiefs Pantalones]

Originally Posted by Dunit35

Well I had 21 college credit hours when I went into college. English comp 1 and 2. Introduction to literature, general physcology, and a computer class. Some of my friends had 30-40 hours before going to school. Some of the classes they make people take in college for their Gen Eds are kind of stupid. I went to college after personally realizing I did not want to work at a pizza restaurant for the rest of my life.

I think that's great that they are now doing that more (offering college courses in high school to take). You'll know in high school whether that kid is really determined to go on to the next level. Although, there are different stories. Some kids don't do well in high school because they are simply bored. My cousin is smart but didn't do well in high school because he knew it all. Sounds dumb, yes, but he flew threw college like it was nothing.

[alanm]

Originally Posted by Garcia Bronco

I think many go to college that would be better off at a trade school.

Not to mention they'd probably end up earning more money as a adult.

[Rausch]

Originally Posted by Dunit35

I went to college after personally realizing I did not want to work at a pizza restaurant for the rest of my life.

Sounds familar...

[Demonpenz]

so you work in a cubicle that is MUCH better

[ChiefFripp]

A college education is just a status symbol to most people, so does this really matter? Working class kids who like to actually pick up a book on their own ,without some silly grade as an incentive, seem to be the brightest people I meet by and large. Most college kids just seem like over- privileged asshats to me.

[jspchief]

Originally Posted by Garcia Bronco

I think many go to college that would be better off at a trade school.

Trade school is a dirty word. No parent wants their kid to grow up and actually have to work for a living.

Lucky for a lot of industries, there's a constant influx of Mexican and other immigrant labor to fill the jobs that Americans think they're to good for.

[FAX]

I have hired a fairly significant number of young college graduates over the years and I am always impressed with how much they think they know.

FAX

[Dunit35]

Originally Posted by Vanilla Thunder

I think that's great that they are now doing that more (offering college courses in high school to take). You'll know in high school whether that kid is really determined to go on to the next level. Although, there are different stories. Some kids don't do well in high school because they are simply bored. My cousin is smart but didn't do well in high school because he knew it all. Sounds dumb, yes, but he flew threw college like it was nothing.

I know many people here that are taking college classes their freshman year that I took my senior year in high school. It took me a semester to get my status changed from freshman to sophmore. I am glad I took those classes in high school and plus, many times those classes are easier to take in high school.

[cdcox]

Originally Posted by Garcia Bronco

I think many go to college that would be better off at a trade school.

Heh, one of the grad students I work with taught at a trade school last fall in order to get some teaching experience. Turns out the trade school was more expensive than a university degree. Most of his students had disasterous personal lives and were going to end up with a ton of debt to land a 35K per year job. It wasn't that they lacked the ability to do well, they just repeatedly made bad decisions in life. With a better personal situation and a crumb of motivation, these same people could be graduating with less debt, an engineering degree, and on their way to a 55K per year starting salary. It's really kind of sad.