Universities Weblog

The Education Department's National Center for Education Statistics recently released a study titled "The National Assessment of Adult Literacy."

The study contained some shocking statistics. From Inside Higher Ed:But at a time when colleges and universities are under the microscope and policy makers are increasingly seeking to measure the student "outcomes" that they are producing, the report is hardly a pat on the back for higher education.

Not only does it find that the average literacy of college educated Americans declined significantly from 1992 to 2003, but it also reveals that just 25 percent of college graduates — and only 31 percent of those with at least some graduate studies — scored high enough on the tests to be deemed "proficient" from a literacy standpoint, which the government defines as "using printed and written information to function in society, to achieve one's goals, and to develop one's knowledge and potential."

"This seems like another piece of hard evidence, a fairly clear indication, that the 'value added' that higher education gave to students didn't improve, and maybe declined, over this period," said Charles Miller, the former University of Texas regent who is heading the U.S. education secretary's Commission on the Future of Higher Education.

"You have the possibility of people going through schools, getting a piece of paper for sitting in class a certain amount, and we don't know whether they're getting what they need. This is a fair sign that there are some problems here."You can read the complete study here.Is one study enough to raise alarms? Is this a quirk, or an ongoing trend that needs to be addressed? Should students be worried about the continuing devaluing of a higher education? What do you think?

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