How depressing is this?

Very:

Student tracking finds limited learning in college

The study, an unusually large-scale effort to track student learning over time, comes as the federal government, reformers and others argue that the U.S. must produce more college graduates to remain competitive globally. But if students aren't learning much, that calls into question whether boosting graduation rates will provide that edge.

"It's not the case that giving out more credentials is going to make the U.S. more economically competitive," Arum said in an interview. "It requires academic rigor ... You can't just get it through osmosis at these institutions."

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The whole college thing is suddenly starting to look like what it is, a house of cards. "More college graduates"? The focus on boosting the number of graduates is completely wrong -- it needs to be on raising the quality of graduates instead. We have plenty of people graduating, the problem is that too many graduate with majors of little value to anybody. What earthly point is there in adding another million graduates with junk majors who end up unemployed, in debt from student loans, and living in Mom's basement? It's a waste of everybody's time and money. Far better to learn plumbing or welding or something else where there are careers that pay good money because they actually accomplish something useful. Truth be known, there are large numbers of people sitting in college classrooms who could not pass the courses necessary to learn how to repair the modern automobile.

Colleges are focused primarily on maximizing their FTE count (Full Time Equivalent students -- two half-time students equal one FTE), which means maximizing asses in seats, Electrical Engineering or Resentment Studies, one's as good as the other. That's what the funding formulas are based on, so it's how they make their money, not by producing quality graduates in economically valuable majors.

Byron