<a href="http://www.billingsgazette.com//index.php?id=1&display=rednews/2006/01/20/build/nation/55-students-skills.inc">Most college students lack skills to do complex tasks, study says</a><br />n<br />n<blockquote>Most college students close to earning a diploma cannot handle many complex but common tasks, from understanding credit card offers to comparing the cost per ounce of food.<br />n<br />nThose are the sobering findings of a study of literacy on college campuses, the first to target the skills of students as they approach the start of their careers.<br />n<br />nMore than 50 percent of students at four-year schools and more than 75 percent at two-year colleges lacked the skills to perform complex literacy tasks.<br />n<br />nThat means they could not interpret a table about exercise and blood pressure, understand the arguments of newspaper editorials, compare credit card offers with different interest rates and annual fees or summarize results of a survey about parental involvement in school. </blockquote><br />n<br />nWhat is going on in this world. I'm just a dumb cowboy who didn't complete college and I can handle these things, why can't college graduates? It really makes a person wonder.<br />n<br />n<b>What may seem depressing or even tragic to one person may seem like an absolute scream to another person, especially if he has had between four and seven beers. Dave Barry</b>