The "value" of a college education

Here is is a book that proves that not only are college graduates not prepared for workplace duties, but they aren’t any smarter for having gone to college, either. The extensive research of authors Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa in their work: Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses,” draws on survey responses, transcript data, and the state-of-the-art Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA). The CLA is a standardized test administered to students in their first semester and then again at the end of their second year.

According to their analysis of more than 2,300 undergraduates, over four years, at twenty-four institutions, 45 percent of these students demonstrate no significant improvement in a range of skills—including critical thinking, complex reasoning, and writing—during their first two years of college. The authors' findings are consistent, per the New York Times (1/17/2010), with the National Survey of Student Engagement's previous review of thousands of students at almost six hundred colleges. 

What’s sad for us in the workplace, the folks who are going to “inherit” the college grads, is this: While they may graduate college (although only 57% of college students actually graduate), they're failing to develop higher-order cognitive skills, which is EXACTLY what we need in today’s knowledge-based economy. Any suggestions?