College students: Not ready for life?

Twenty percent of U.S. college students graduating from 4-year colleges don't have the skills to handle tasks like estimating whether their car has enough gas, or calculating the total cost of ordering office supplies, a new study has found.

The study funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts surveyed 1,827 graduating students from 80 randomly selected 2-year and 4-year schools. Pew tested students on three types of literacy, including performing basic computations; understanding documents like job applications; and comprehending news articles or instructional materials.

"The surprisingly weak quantitative literacy ability of many college graduates is troubling," Stephane Baldi, who directed the study, said in a release. "A knowledgeable workforce is vital to cope with the increasing demands of the global marketplace."

Blog community response:

"And these are the bestest and brightest we're talking about - the average literacy of these same college students is significantly higher than that of adults in general."
--Uncle Rummy

"I'm sorry, but identifying a location on a map is an 'intermediate skill' for students about to graduate from college? You would expect an eighth-grader to do that!"
--Pseudo-random Thoughts

"If college educated people can't understand credit card offers, this leads me to believe that people may actually follow those stupid 'clickheres'."
--Living in the Information Age