across all OECD member countries, a full 8 percent of college students are reading at the level of a ten-year-old, if not worse. While countries like Germany and France rang in at under 5 percent, countries like Poland, Israel, and the United States blew the curve at 21, 20, and 14 percent, respectively.
The numbers aren’t much better when it comes to math. Across OECD countries, 9 percent of college students do math at or below a ten-year-old level. In Italy, the US, and Slovakia, that figure jumps to over 15 percent — only outdone by Israel, where roughly 21 percent of college students were underachieving at the same low benchmark.
So just to be clear this happens everywhere in the world, just it’s higher in the US - for reading it’s 14% here vs 8% on average across the oecd and for math 15% here vs 9% average. So we’re bad, but not the worst.
There’s also a major issue: we have a lot of low selectivity colleges, which includes scam diploma mills. Other countries have some low selectivity institutions, but I bet the leaders in this survey have a higher proportion of them. That means there’s inherent selection bias.
Should make sense; entry exams obviously filter out students with poor reading and math skills.
I went to a university without entry exams or numerus clausus. They instead used the first two semesters to filter out the unskilled (plus the general requirements for attending university in Germany).
Of course if first semesters are counted they’d show up in this statistic even if those students would be almost guaranteed to be gone a year later.
Though still easier to get into I imagine, this was still the case in US universities when I attended. A significant portion of students didn’t make it past the first year or so.
So just to be clear this happens everywhere in the world, just it’s higher in the US - for reading it’s 14% here vs 8% on average across the oecd and for math 15% here vs 9% average. So we’re bad, but not the worst.
There’s also a major issue: we have a lot of low selectivity colleges, which includes scam diploma mills. Other countries have some low selectivity institutions, but I bet the leaders in this survey have a higher proportion of them. That means there’s inherent selection bias.
Should make sense; entry exams obviously filter out students with poor reading and math skills.
I went to a university without entry exams or numerus clausus. They instead used the first two semesters to filter out the unskilled (plus the general requirements for attending university in Germany).
Of course if first semesters are counted they’d show up in this statistic even if those students would be almost guaranteed to be gone a year later.
Though still easier to get into I imagine, this was still the case in US universities when I attended. A significant portion of students didn’t make it past the first year or so.
Yeah, most countries have something like that. And then you’ve got the US and their Trump University, a thing that actually existed.
But really, lots of pay-to-attend stuff.
Im Polish and what is this?