Study: Most College Students Lack Skills

[zalinda]

By BEN FELLER

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 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.

http://apnews1.iwon.com//article/20060119/D8F80OBGH.html



And you wonder why they vote against their own best interests!

zalinda

[Rabrrrrrr]

1. Yes, but at least they're learning Skillz

:eyes:

[HillDem]

9. Computer hacking skills, bow hunting skills, nunchuck skills

[SoCalDem]

2. Teach to the test in elementary and high school

teach to the degree in college..

kids end up not knowing how to manage day to day living..

sound about right:(

[The_Casual_Observer]

3. Yeah, but they can sure get good scores on the SAT!

And that's all that counts.

[dysfunctional press]

4. College is NOT about learning...

it's about making grades, and preparing you to become a member of the corporati.

[boobooday]

7. Not in my class

I tell my students:

College is the place you go to make your head a more interesting place to dwell for the rest of your life.

[newyawker99]

11. Hi QuestionAll!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[boobooday]

5. Maybe if they were reading and writing in K-12

They would be able to read and write in College. My son's high school library was full of 3rd grade level books, and the teacher insisted he read them, even though he was plowing through all my lit major poetry collections at home.

But I teach college students. They are great. They deserve better. Oh, and they're pretty damn savvy about some things. Including Ipods. :-)

[napi21]

6. IF this is true, WHY?

I have worked with some very COMMON SENSE inept college grads over the years myself! THAT problem has always existed. I can't say that they couldn't understand NP editorials or credit card offers though.

A good friend of mine is a HS teacher, and I've often asked her why they don't teach common things like how to write a check, how to balanace a check book, how to compare "price per unit purchases, etc. You know, the things you need to know to just live every day! She said she does, but it's NOT part of the ciriculum.

If the Ben Fuller article is true, what in the hell are they teaching for four years????

[Celeborn Skywalker]

8. They "vote against their own best interests"?

What are you talking about? College age kids voted by a large majority for John Kerry.

[zalinda]

12. This is not a new phenomena, it's been going on for years

Take a look at a McGuffey's Readers written in 1833. This is a list of supplemental reading with the 6th and last reader.

Arnold's (Matthew) Sohrab and Rustum
Burke's Conciliation with the American Colonies
Carlyle's Essay on Burns
Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Defoe's History of the Plague in London
De Quincey's Revolt of the Tartars
Emerson's The American Scholar, Self-Reliance and Compensation
Franklin's Autobiography
"George Eliot's" Silas Marner
Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield
Irving's Sketch Book (Ten Selections)
Irving's Tales of a Traveler
Macaulay's Second Essay on Chatham
Macaulay's Essay on Milton
Macaulay's Essay on Addison
Macaulay's Life of Johnson
Milton's L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Comus Lycidas,
Milton's Paradise Lost, Books I and. II
Pope's Homer's Iliad, Books I, VI, XXII, XXIV,
Scott's Ivanhoe
Scott's Marmion
Scott's Lady of the Lake
Scott's The Abbot
Scott's Woodstock.
Shakespeare's Julius Caesar
Shakespeare's Twelfth Night
Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice
Shakespeare's Midsummer-Night's Dream
Shakespeare's As You Like It
Shakespeare's Macbeth
Shakespeare's Hamlet,
Sir Roger de Coverley Papers (The Spectator),
Southey's Life of Nelson
Tennyson's The Princess,
Webster's (Daniel) Bunker Hill Orations,
-----

COPYRIGHT, 1879, BY VAN ANTWERP, BRAGG & COMPANY COPYRIGHT,
1896, BY AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY.
COPYRIGHT, 1907 AND 1921, BY HENRY H. VAIL.


http://www.gutenberg.org/files/16751/16751.txt


Do any high schoolers read the equivocal of these texts today? Do college students? When I went to community college in the 80's, I was astonished on how easy the classes were. When my son was in high school, I couldn't believe how easy his school work was. The dumbing down of our schools has been happening for decades. And that's why I said, no wonder they vote against their own best interest. College students, for the most part, vote dem. But, when they go out and start their real life, a lot turn repub to "protect" their money. And, some just don't care.

zalinda

zalinda

[jody]

10. No problem, under the NWO we won't require many intelligent/educated

workers in the U.S.

All others can do menial tasks for minimum wage, no health care, no retirement benefits, and state sponsored euthanasia.

The movie "Soylent Green" is an eerie forecast of what might be.