College Students Lack Literacy

Frr writes to tell us that CNN has a rather disturbing confirmation of what many of us have already seen in practice. In a recent literacy study it was found that "more than half of students at four-year colleges -- and at least 75 percent at two-year colleges -- lack the literacy to handle complex, real-life tasks such as understanding credit card offers." The literacy study took a look at three different type of literacy: analyzing news stories and other prose, understanding documents, and having basic math skills needed for checkbooks or restaurant tips.

Comments

Re:Complex?

[benjamindees]

Yes. And this isn't surprising, since many college graduates from 30 years ago can't figure them out today either.

My father believes that APR still stands for "annual percentage rate", when most of the time it actually means "above the prime rate". And the prime rate isn't the actual Fed prime rate, it's the "Wall Street Journal" prime rate. This is the same generation that lost most of their houses in the mortgage scams of the 80s, btw.

Re:The bad news is....

[Reality Master 101]

Dude, think about what your saying. The VAST majority of the lower classes vote Democrat, and people who are more successful tend to vote Republican. Do you seriously think all the smart people are poor and blue collar, and all the white collar, rich people are stupid?

Not to say that all Democrats are stupid and vice versa (reasonable, intelligent people can certainly disagree on things), but the surface evidence is exactly the opposite of the point you're trying to make.