Literacy study in US colleges

Kathy · Post by **Kathy** » 1/20/2006, 2:49 pm

<i>Washington — More than half of students at U.S. four-year colleges – and at least 75 per cent at two-year colleges – lack the literacy to handle complex, real-life tasks such as understanding credit card offers, a study has found.

The literacy study funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts, the first to target the skills of graduating students, finds that students fail to lock in key skills, no matter their field of study.</i>

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ ... rnational/

This is not a new problem but I've never actually seen anything on specific studies. I find it disturbing (and I'm not picking on the US because different degrees of the same problem exist in many countries)

thirdhour · Post by **thirdhour** » 1/20/2006, 9:39 pm

I've been hearing this for years.

It's true though, how you can become extremely knowledgable about some things without gathering things considered general knowledge. A 26-year old at work, who I consider very smart and knowledgable, didn't understand Canada's electoral system.

Kathy · Post by **Kathy** » 1/21/2006, 8:21 am

I don't understand how a person can get through college without knowing certain basic things! Wow.

I have a colleague that's like that, but I hoped she was an isolated case. When we were in Italy together for a business trip people kept asking her questions about how certain things work in Canada and her answer was always "ask Kathy, I don't know stuff like that" Everyone thought she was an airhead.

People not being able to understand credit card offers or do basic financial planning... that's awful but it explains the extremely high bankruptcy rate.