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Welcome to the future of America: College grads stupid, illiterate, and they believe in demons, ghosts
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Two studies released this week offer differing views of the success of American universities.
Yesterday came word that many college students nearing graduation are so dumb they have trouble reading credit card offers or calculating the price of food in a supermarket.
Half the students at four-year colleges, and three-quarters of those at two-year colleges can't perform complex literary tasks, such as analyzing news stories.
"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.
The news on math literacy is even worse.
Only one-fifth of four-year students posses basic quantitative skills, like the ability to calculate whether or not a car has enough gas to get to a service station.
In an effort to spin the results, the "bright side" was that the skill level of college students was better than the national average.
The glass isn't three-quarters empty, it's a quarter full!
In stark contrast to this distressing news are the results of a survey that shows that as students progress through the hall of higher learning, they become more open to the existence of psychics, demonic possession and ESP
a poll of 439 college students in the January-February issue of the Skeptical Inquirer found seniors and grad students were more likely than freshmen to believe in the paranormal.
In general college students checked the "Believe" box less than the general population surveyed by Gallup. But the lack of "Don't Believe" responses among college students was lower for psychic or spiritual healing, haunted houses, demonic possession, ghosts, clairvoyance and witches.
Two links:
[link to news.yahoo.com]
[link to www.livescience.com]
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