Nearly half the 14.7 million undergraduates at two- and four-year institutions never receive degrees. The deficiencies turn up not just in math, science and engineering, areas in which a growing chorus warns of difficulties in the face of global competition, but also in the basics of reading and writing.
According to scores on the 2006 ACT college entrance exam, 21 percent of students applying to four-year institutions are ready for college-level work in all four areas tested, reading, writing, math and biology.
For many students, the outlook does not improve after college. The Pew Charitable Trusts recently found that three-quarters of community college graduates were not literate enough to handle everyday tasks like comparing viewpoints in newspaper editorials or calculating the cost of food items per ounce.
The unyielding statistics showcase a deep disconnection between what high school teachers think that their students need to know and what professors, even at two-year colleges, expect them to know.
At Cal State, the system admits only students with at least a B average in high school. Nevertheless, 37 percent of the incoming class last year needed remedial math, and 45 percent needed remedial English.
"Students are still shocked when they're told they need developmental courses," said Donna McKusik, the senior director of developmental, or remedial, education at the Community College of Baltimore County. "They think they graduated from a high school, they should be ready for college."
One Community College administrator
said he saw students who passed through high school never having read a book cover to cover.
"They've listened in class, taken notes and taken the test off of that"
The same thing happens at a certain 4-year university I'm familiar with. (Not to name names...)
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