Literacy should be a new requirement for college

College students. Most of us are at least 18 years old, have graduated from high school or have a GED and still are incapable of composing either a research paper or a formal essay.

In high school most of our teachers overlooked this ineptitude and gave us passing grades on good faith. Why?

Did they think it would help us in the long run? Well, there's news for all of the people who think that we were gifted with a favor from the gods. We are now screwed.

According to some GHC professors, college students in general have no grammar or spelling skills (even with SpellCheck) no concept of sentence structure, no clue what MLA or APA formats are, no knowledge of reliable sources and how to use them, and most of them don't really care.

This lack of knowledge could be the difference between a successful career in PR or marketing and totally flunking out of college. Learn to write and be successful. Many careers and employers require writing ability. Just know that.

We get into college with our SAT or ACT scores and GPAs. But when we get here, with teachers who expect students to be able to write, something that should have been learned by now, we are in huge amounts of trouble.

Students dread literature and composition classes because of the papers they know they will be required to write.

Most professors are frustrated, but still try to help remedy these inadequacies out of the kindness of their hearts, even though it really isn't their job. Talk about going above and beyond. Here at GHC, a smaller college, we should all be grateful that our professors do care.

So here we are, flightless baby birds pushed from the nest without feathers, and we hit the ground with a rather disgusting splat.

The answer to the dilemma? Well, who knows? The fact is that college students don't have the skills they need to survive. Is this one of the huge problems causing the ridiculous drop-out rate of freshman college students? Possibly.

According to government figures given at msnbc.com, �Just 54 percent of students entering four-year colleges in 1997 had a degree six years later. That leaves a whopping 46 percent of students who drop out.�

And, as of the 2000 census, 21 percent of Americans had taken some college courses but had not earned a degree. A total of 15.5 percent had earned a bachelor's degree but no higher. Only 8.9 percent had earned graduate or professional degrees.

GHC has a tutorial center. Instead of failing classes, why can't students employ this free service? It can boost GPAs and maybe help students pass a class or two as well as gain essential skills they will need for the rest of a their lives.

Also, GHC has implemented the QEP. This stands for the Quality Enhancement Program. This plan is going to take five years to become completely active.

Five years. That's all of high school and a portion of middle school all over again. It's a vital step in the right direction, but why does this take so long?

Is it really the role of higher education to teach these skills? What has become of the public education system before college? Why is it so difficult to write a paper?