Can millennials read, write and add?
Posted by at 1:40 PM

Having just finished a long week of reading intern cover letters, I am on the precipice of depression about our nation's youth. I have been hearing about a new study indicating that college students' verbal and quantitative literacy rates are shockingly low, but wanted to find the actual source after last week's reading. The report from the American Institutes of Research is available here and provides statistics including these:

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.

The news isn't as Chicken Little as it may appear at first glance. These dire and headline worthy statistics, however, the press release here assures us that

“Despite the lackluster performance of many graduates on quantitative literacy, we should nevertheless be encouraged that current college graduates are not 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.

Although the study doesn't specifically address writing skills, it does give an overall context for last week's cover letters. This report is essential reading for any of us who recruit in from the new college grad pool.