Recent college graduates might have gone through four years of higher learning, but most of them can't balance their checkbooks or tell the difference between a left-wing and right-wing editorial, according to the American Institutes for Research.

A study issued Thursday by the research organization says less than half of four-year graduates and only 25 percent of two-year grads have the skills necessary to perform complex but common literacy tasks like comparing credit-card offers and understanding contrasting viewpoints.

The study, dubbed "The National Survey of America's College Students," was based on a sample of 1,827 graduates from 80 schools and examined literacy skills of recent graduates as they embarked on their careers.

Students were tested on three types of literacy skills: prose (ability to read articles in a newspaper), document (ability to comprehend forms) and quantitative (ability to do basic calculations). According to the study, 20 percent of four-year students even lacked the basic quantitative skills to gauge how much gas was left in their tank. One percent of those sampled couldn't even add the price of a salad and the price of a sandwich on a menu.

"I think [the results] are fairly disappointing and disturbing," said Dr. Stéphane Baldi, the study's director and author. "Most people who work in business or in higher education just assume that students already have those skills."

The scale ranged from below basic skills (like adding the amounts on a deposit slip) to proficient skills (calculating the cost per ounce of food). Most students ranked intermediate, meaning they were able to perform moderately challenging tasks like finding a location on a map or calculating the total cost of ordering office supplies.

Baldi says the problem lies in the lack of preparation students receive before they go to college (see [article id="1507802"]"Report: Half of High School Grads Unprepared For College"[/article]). According to an ACT report released in August, just slightly less than 50 percent of all high school grads lack the basic academic skills necessary to succeed in college.

"It's quite likely that they are coming in without those fundamental skills and the colleges are just making the assumption that they already have them," Baldi said.

Baldi said he hopes the report will be an eye-opener for college administrators and professors, who should rethink their assumptions and provide students with more challenging course work.

The findings also showed that today's students have the same or higher literacy rates than those who graduated five, 10 or 20 years ago. The study stated that there is no significant difference in literacy skill between students who attend private schools versus those who go to public ones, nor did it find any significant gap between the sexes (see [article id="1502764"]"Are Women Smarter Than Men? College Enrollment Trends Suggest So"[/article]).

There were racial gaps detected however, with whites attending four-year schools having the best literacy rates of any ethnic group. Perhaps less surprisingly, the report also showed that students whose parents had a college education fared much better than those whose parents only completed high school.