<p>
[quote]
The U.K. is a step away from being a third world country.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>More like a furlong...</p>
<p>For IMMEDIATE RELEASE</p>
<p>january 19, 2006</p>
<p>Contact: Larry McQuillan</p>
<p>(202) 403-5119</p>
<p>NEW STUDY OF THE LITERACY OF COLLEGE STUDENTS FINDS SOME ARE GRADUATING
WITH ONLY BASIC SKILLS</p>
<p>REPORT BY AMERICAN INSTITUTES FOR RESEARCH FINDS AT LEAST 20 PERCENT OF COLLEGE GRADS UNABLE TO DO FUNDAMENTAL COMPUTATIONS</p>
<p>WASHINGTON, D.C. Twenty percent of U.S. college students completing 4-year degrees and 30 percent of students earning 2-year degrees have only basic quantitative literacy skills, meaning they are unable to estimate if their car has enough gasoline to get to the next gas station or calculate the total cost of ordering office supplies, according to a new national survey by the American Institutes for Research (AIR). The study was funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts.</p>
<p>The AIR study found there is no difference between the quantitative literacy of todays graduates compared with previous generations, and that current graduates generally are superior to previous graduates when it comes to other forms of literacy needed to comprehend documents and prose.</p>
<p>The complete study is available on the AIR Web site, <a href="http://www.air.org%5B/url%5D">www.air.org</a>.</p>
<p>The new study, The National Survey of Americas College Students, (NSACS) is based on a sample of 1,827 graduating students from 80 randomly selected 2-year and 4-year public and private colleges and universities across the United States. By targeting students nearing the end of their degree programs, the study provides a broader and more comprehensive picture of fundamental college literacy skills than ever before.</p>
<p>The surprisingly weak quantitative literacy ability of many college graduates is troubling, says Dr. Stéphane Baldi, who directed the AIR study. A knowledgeable workforce is vital to cope with the increasing demands of the global marketplace.</p>
<p>Study findings include:</p>
<pre><code>* More than 75 percent of students at 2-year colleges and more than 50 percent of students at 4-year colleges do not score at the proficient level of literacy. This means that they lack the skills to perform complex literacy tasks, such as comparing credit card offers with different interest rates or summarizing the arguments of newspaper editorials.
Students in 2- and 4-year colleges have the greatest difficulty with quantitative literacy: approximately 30 percent of students in 2-year institutions and nearly 20 percent of students in 4-year institutions have only Basic quantitative literacy. Basic skills are those necessary to compare ticket prices or calculate the cost of a sandwich and a salad from a menu.
Students about to graduate from college have higher prose and document literacy than previous graduates with similar levels of education; for quantitative literacy, differences between current and former college graduates are not significant.
There are no significant differences in the literacy of students graduating from public and private institutions. Additionally, in assessing literacy levels, there are no differences between part-time and full-time students. No overall relationship exists between literacy and the length of time it takes to earn a degree, or between literacy and an academic major.
There are no significant differences between men and women in college in their average prose, document, and quantitative literacy indicating that women may be bridging a divide that has long existed between the sexes.
The average prose and quantitative literacy of Whites in 4-year institutions is higher than for any other racial/ethnic group, mirroring trends in the general population. The fact that white students also have the highest prose and document literacy among students in 2-year colleges provides further evidence that the literacy gap between minority and non-minority students persists.
The literacy skills of college students are directly related to the education of their parents: children whose parents graduated college or attended graduate school have higher literacy than students whose parents did not graduate high school or stopped after receiving a high school diploma or GED.
Despite variations in income, most differences in the literacy of students across income groups are not significant. The most significant disparity exists between students in 4-year institutions with the lowest and highest income backgrounds. Students in the highest income group (either their personal income or the income of their parents) have higher prose and document literacy than students in the lowest income group.
Literacy level is significantly higher among students who say their coursework places a strong emphasis on applying theories or concepts to practical problems, in comparison to students who say their coursework rarely touch on these skills.
</code></pre>
<p>The results of the study are intended to help college and university administrators identify specific academic areas where students have literacy gaps that should be addressed, as well as provide information on how prepared students are to join the labor force.</p>
<p>The report includes comparisons with data contained in the U.S. Department of Educations National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL), the first nationwide assessment of the literacy skills of U.S. adults aged 16 and older in more than a decade. The first NAAL report, which was released in December, was written by AIR authors.</p>
<p>Despite the lackluster performance of many graduates on quantitative literacy, we should nevertheless be encouraged that current college graduates are not falling behind in terms of literacy when compared to graduates from earlier generations, says Emerson Elliott, a former Commissioner of Education Statistics at the U.S. Department of Education.</p>
<p>Higher education institutions should take careful note of the important benefits derived from emphasizing analytic and critical thinking, and the application of theories in preparing students, says Peter Ewell, vice president of the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems.</p>
<p>Elliott and Ewell are members of the National Advisory Panel that guided the direction of the study. Other panel members include: Joni Finney, vice president of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education; George Kuh, director of the Center for Postsecondary Research at Indiana University; Margaret Miller, director of the Center for the Study of Higher Education at the University of Virginia; and Nichole Rowles, Planning and Evaluation Officer for The Pew Charitable Trusts.</p>
<p>About AIR</p>
<p>Established in 1946, the American Institutes for Research (AIR) is an independent, nonpartisan not-for-profit organization that conducts behavioral and social science research on important social issues and delivers technical assistance both domestically and internationally in the areas of health, education, and workforce productivity.</p>
<p>The Pew Charitable Trusts</p>
<p>The Pew Charitable Trusts serves the public interest by providing information, advancing policy solutions and supporting civic life. Based in Philadelphia, with an office in Washington, D.C., the Trusts will invest $204 million in fiscal year 2006 to provide organizations and citizens with fact-based research and practical solutions for challenging issues. "</p>
<p>Whatever his faults, the original poster was right. Too many people go to college and Berkeley is no exception.</p>
<p>Boy, this study sure is alarming. We've improved? Wow, that's a problem. :p</p>
<p>
[quote]
Harvard is not the center of the academic universe. You need to quit drinking the Harvard Kool-aid. As far as undergrad study is concerned, in the U.S., for engineering, Harvard is not the first school that comes to mind of students for undergrad engineering study [Caltech (JPL), MIT, Stanford, UC Berkeley (Lawrence Livermore and that small operation in the desert called Los Alamos), UCLA, University of Chicago (the birthplace of the U.S. nuclear program and manager of the Argonne National Labs) and such schools run the big shows in engineering and science in the US]. For economics (The University of Chicago is the top dog). For business (well, Harvard doesn't offer a business undergrad so there's nothing to talk about there unless you want to argue that economics qualifies in this category).
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I am not saying that I think that Harvard is the center of the universe. I am simply stating the fact that this is how Harvard is PERCEIVED by people. Whether they are right or wrong in thinking this, it is what it is. </p>
<p>You can talk about how other schools run the show when it comes to engineering and science, but that doesn't explain why Harvard wins the cross-admit battles with Caltech and MIT. Why is that? If nothing else, that shows that Harvard is at least PERCEIVED to be better than those other schools. People who are admitted to Caltech and MIT are obviously pretty good at science and engineering, yet at the end of the day, when it comes to cross-admits, the majority of them will choose to go to Harvard. You can complain about it all you want, but like it or not, that's reality. </p>
<p>
[quote]
And finally, if someone is a whiz in math and/or science, and wants to have a career in math or science, they are not going to turn down an opportunity to do their undergraduate study at Caltech or MIT so they can go to Harvard. That does not compute.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>So, again, tell me why is it that Harvard wins the cross-admit battles with both of these schools? What's up with that? </p>
<p>
[quote]
The U.S. is losing its competitive edge in the world today because we don't have enough scientists and engineers. While other countries are cranking out top scientists and engineers from their undergrad programs; we are handing out undergrad diplomas, to far too many people in Literature and Arts, Historical Study, Science, Foreign Culture, Moral Reasoning, and Social Analysis. Nice, fluffy, creampuff majors with little or no real world application in science, or engineering. That's why it is ridiculous for you to attack a school like UC Berkeley. A school that turns out many of the top engineers and scientists in the US. By this measurement, I would say that UC Berkeley is a vastly superior school to Harvard or Yale. </p>
<p>In the U.S. we don't turn out enough engineers and scientists so we have to import the talent. If it weren't for schools like UC Berkeley we would be importing almost all of our science and engineering talent
[/quote]
</p>
<p>That's an interesting segue, and in fact, is detouring into another one of my pet topics. You talk about how the US needs more scientists and engineers and how Berkeley is producing lots of them. Ok, so if the US needs so many more scientists and engineers, then why are so many of the engineering and science students coming out of the top schools choosing to not take engineering/science jobs, but are rather taking jobs in management consulting and investment banking? Why is that? </p>
<p>Again, take MIT. We can all agree that MIT is the best engineering school in the nation. EECCS (course 6) at MIT is widely considered to be the premier engineering program at MIT. Yet even here, a full 1/4 of the EECS class, instead of taking EECS jobs, goes on to consulting and banking! </p>
<p>"...around a quarter go into investment banking and other financial or management consulting,"</p>
<p>Furthermore, plenty of other engineers wanted to get into consulting/banking, but weren't given an offer. Hence, I would guess that the true number of MIT EECS students who wanted to get into finance of consulting (whether or not they actually did get in) is probably about 50%. </p>
<p>Or consider this quote from the new famous Time Magazine Cover story that detailed whether America is losing its science edge:</p>
<p>Students at </p>
<p>Maybe I'm a crazy capitalist nutjob, but I say that if the US can continue to import any engineers we need, then we're golden. I mean, c'mon, how would that be any different from the past? Do we honestly believe that it was OUR engineers alone that got NASA off the ground?</p>
<p>
[quote]
Luckily, Berkeley has a liberal arts education as well or else if the only majors we had were science-based, all of the students would be like MIT students.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Oh, believe me, there are some pretty weird Berkeley liberal arts students as well. To give you an example, I know plenty of Berkeley students who were nominally majoring in the liberal arts, but in reality, were really "majoring" in smoking pot. To visit their apartment was to basically walk into a Cheech & Chong movie. </p>
<p>However, to your point, I would say that what you are really indicting is the general geek science/engineering culture itself, and not anything to do with MIT specifically. Let's face it. The Berkeley engineers are fully able to match nerdiness and weirdness with anybody. </p>
<p>
[quote]
Maybe, but somehow internationally many people have not heard of Princeton surprisingly. I've just never heard of Princeton excelling in a certain area.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Let it be known that I know quite a few internationals who have never heard of Berkeley. In particular, Princeton seems to have ensconced itself into world pop culture more so than Berkeley has. For example, Princeton has actually managed to produce 2 US Presidents (Madison and Wilson), and 3 Vice Presidents whereas Berkeley still has not produced any in either category, despite its much larger size. Successful movies like A Beautiful Mind and Batman Begins mention Princeton repeatedly. It's been a long time since Berkeley has been mentioned in a big-time movie. </p>
<p>Look, this is not to say that I think that Princeton is 'better' than Berkeley on an overall standpoint. In fact, I freely agree that the Berkeley PhD programs are probably better than Princeton's. However, my point is that I don't think Princeton is hurting too badly on the international recognition scale. </p>
<p>
[quote]
By "sucky" I mean the departments are not in the top 5 or maybe top 10 of the nation. Yale is famous for the arts, not for science.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>And conversely, Berkeley is famous for the graduate schools, and less so for its undergraduate program. This is why I think College Senior has a point when he says that the Berkeley undergrad program really isn't everything that it could be and that to be an undergrad at Berkeley is to basically be getting the short end of the stick, relative to what Berkeley provides to its other students. The true potential of Berkeley is realized only by its graduate students, particularly its doctoral students.</p>
<p>Berkeley has a pretty big name in the world, sakky. Hitchcock has Berkeley mentioned in multiple movies. People know it, sakky, generally, more so than most universities in the world, only better known by a handful.</p>
<p>Oh, and what is that female chemistry major worried about? Many institutions would love to give tenure to women scientists who are capalbe.</p>
<p>In terms of engineering, I'd say Stanford, MIT, Caltech, and Berkeley are tops (it's debatable which one is best). I can understand that Berkeley probably cannot provide the same attention to undergrads as the others, but for people who can handle studying independently, it's a pretty darn good school! I've also heard that many Silicon Valley companies recruit Berkeley engineers. Sorry, it was kind of a tangent, but I just wanted it to be known that despite its faults, Berkeley is a premier engineering school.</p>
<p>As far as berkeley being in tv and movies, its is all over the OC. Sandy Coen went there for both undergrad and law school. Now he's a high powered hotshot in Newport. Berkeley was in the Graduate. In Legally blonde, when Reece is sitting with all the smart Harvard law kids and they're all saying where they went to undergrad, one of them said she went to Berekely. Freddy Prinze Junior was in a horrible movie that took place at Berkeley. In Phenomenon, starring John Travolta, he needs to go see the best minds in the world or something, so where does he go? Berkeley! One of the guys on beauty and the geek goes to berkeley. I believe the Nutty proffesor was supposed to be at Berkeley. Several of the creators of the Simpsons went to Berkeley and I think its been mentioned a couple of times on the show. And those are just off the top of my head. Imagine if I actually did some research.</p>
<p>Jack Bauer went to Cal as a grad student. But he did of course go to UCLA as an undergrad.</p>
<p>I hear that Middle Eastern studies related deaths shot through the roof when he was at UCLA.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Berkeley has a pretty big name in the world, sakky. Hitchcock has Berkeley mentioned in multiple movies. People know it, sakky, generally, more so than most universities in the world, only better known by a handful.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Nobody is saying that Berkeley doesn't have a big name in the world. But to say that it clearly has a bigger name than Princeton - I find that to be a pretty strong statement that I, for one, cannot countenance. </p>
<p>
[quote]
Oh, and what is that female chemistry major worried about? Many institutions would love to give tenure to women scientists who are capalbe.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Oh, I don't know about that. Getting tenure in general is pretty darn hard. I seem to recall reading somewhere how a school that wasn't even near the top had a tenure-track opening come up, and at least 250 people applied for that one spot. And that doesn't even have anything to do with being a woman. </p>
<p>
[quote]
In terms of engineering, I'd say Stanford, MIT, Caltech, and Berkeley are tops (it's debatable which one is best). I can understand that Berkeley probably cannot provide the same attention to undergrads as the others, but for people who can handle studying independently, it's a pretty darn good school! I've also heard that many Silicon Valley companies recruit Berkeley engineers. Sorry, it was kind of a tangent, but I just wanted it to be known that despite its faults, Berkeley is a premier engineering school.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I agree that Berkeley is a premier engineering school. But that's not what I'm talking about. I have shown that many engineers at even MIT don't really want to be engineers. That's why they finish their engineering degrees and then immediately run off to consulting and banking. It is precisely these kinds of people who probably would have preferred going to Harvard instead. After all, other than having a good backup career (which I agree is a very good reason), why get an engineering degree if you're never going to work as an engineer?</p>
<hr>
<p>For people interested in the original topic of this thread</p>
<hr>
<p>This is college seniors again on another handle (I purposefully got the other one deleted, banned).</p>
<p>I may have been on tilt before but the truth still stands. I don't think the berkeley name is worth very much especially when using index scores for things like graduate school. I don't believe there is a multiplier at all to offset how hard Berkeley (or rather arbritary some of the grading may be), so its definitely not worth it if you know you're capable of harvard law or yale law or something big like that.</p>
<p>The reputation alone won't matter and it'll be much harder to get a good gpa here.</p>
<p>However, if you're doing business or engineering, berkeley has a very good value for you, thouugh you may find yourself getting screwed over and failing.</p>
<p>If you also intend to do cheap grad school here, its also a good idea to come here to network with the profs.</p>
<p>The brand name is also marginally useful for applying to jobs straight out of college, but there are thousands of berkeley grads a year, and knowing that the intelligence of the student population is similar to UCLA's or UC San Diego, this will only help you if you have a 3.8 versus someone with a 3.8 from one of the other UC's. If you have a 3.6, anyone with significantly above that and is the same other wise will beat you.</p>
<p>Hence the Berkeley brand name only means so much now because so many people get in.</p>
<p>And also, Berkeley doesn't offer much more opportunities than other UC's where students can also go abroad at all of them and have still have a nice large city to be in (a significant number). It has some research opportunities with top professors as a hook, but I think that will only affect a few students.</p>
<p>Remember, you have to put up with all the things I said before, which may not be necessarily exclusive to berkeley itself (the other uc's might be very similar for you).</p>
<hr>
<p>In response to this thread as it has evolved:</p>
<p>Berkeley <em>undergrad</em> is just not that famous. It use to be back in the 60's and 70's. Believe it or not, it was ranked up there with Harvard and Yale even for undergrad. But thats when all the idiot hippies took over and the rather nice suburb around Berkeley became filled with undesirables. Things have just been going downhill from there and the budget crisis has also accelerated berkeley's decline. I know of more than a few professors that have left to bigger and better things (such as bigger paychecks and better research budgets) at other universities. There is a lag factor since a lot of professors like it here, but the writing's on the wall.</p>
<p>Berkeley's undergrad program has produced exactly one famous person in recent memory. Arguably the worst Supreme Court Justice the US has ever seen, Earl Warren.</p>
<p>Not exactly an auspicious legacy.</p>
<p>Why would you create a new user name and pretty much rehash what you originally wrote? Let it go, and allow this thread to fizzle out. It's obviously going nowhere.</p>
<p>
[quote]
And also, Berkeley doesn't offer much more opportunities than those UC's where students can also go abroad and have a nice large city to be in.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Umm...you can go abroad from ANY UC through EAP. Get your facts straight before you start badmouthing a place.</p>
<p>
Nobody is saying that Berkeley doesn't have a big name in the world. But to say that it clearly has a bigger name than Princeton - I find that to be a pretty strong statement that I, for one, cannot countenance.
</p>
<p>Internationally, Berkeley DOES have a better reputation. I used to live in Europe for awhile and my stepmother is British, and many people have heard of Berkeley because it pumps out a lot of research. THES has recognized it before Princeton. And in Asia, where my dad is from, many people have not heard of Princeton. It's odd because Princeton is famous in America, but it's not abroad, partly due to its lack of research and citations.</p>
<p>Princeton carries a fantastic name here in Japan, but it's certainly arguable that Berkeley wins.</p>
<p>But the Japanese are weird.</p>
<p>I wonder what Jack Bauer scored on his SATs.</p>
<p>Jack Bauer didn't take the SAT. He interrogated it until it gave up all its secrets.</p>
<p>BTW, he went to UCLA as an undergrad, but Cal as a grad student.</p>
<p>"Berkeley's undergrad program has produced exactly one famous person in recent memory. Arguably the worst Supreme Court Justice the US has ever seen, Earl Warren."</p>
<p>Why doesn't this statement surprise me? Oh, that's right, because Warren was THE key to the success of Brown Vs Board of Education, which collegesenior must lay awake with cold sweats thinking about, what with his hatred of minorites and all.</p>
<p>BTW, Beaver Cleaver himself went to Berkeley, so we have two famous people. Take that!</p>