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Have you ever wondered what all those college students are actually learning? Well, according to one shocking new study, they are apparently not learning much at all. According to very extensive research detailed in a new book entitled “Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses”, 45 percent of U.S. college students exhibit “no significant gains in learning” after two years in college. For many Americans, a statistic like that comes as a complete shock, but for anyone that has spent much time in or around U.S. colleges lately this should not come as much of a surprise. This new research also found that today’s students spend approximately 50% less time studying than U.S. college students did just a few decades ago. What this research shows is what many of us have known for a long time – that the quality of college education in the United States today is a complete and total joke.

The following are a few more of the shocking results from this study….

*35% of U.S. college students spend 5 hours or less studying per week.

*50% of U.S. college students have never taken a class where they had to write more than 20 pages.

*32% of U.S. college students have never taken a class where they had to read more than 40 pages in a week.

So what in the world are all of these college students doing all day long?

Well, according to the study, U.S. college students spend 24% of their time sleeping and 51% of their time socializing.

Oh, and they spend about 7% of their time studying.

Personally, I have had the chance to spend quite a few years on college campuses. In a previous article, I described what life is like for most “average students” enrolled in our colleges and universities today….

The vast majority of college students in America spend two to four hours a day in the classroom and maybe an hour or two outside the classroom studying. The remainder of the time these “students” are out drinking beer, partying, chasing after sex partners, going to sporting events, playing video games, hanging out with friends, chatting on Facebook or getting into trouble. When they say that college is the most fun that most people will ever have in their lives they mean it. It is basically one huge party.

So with all of this free time shouldn’t all of these students be able to pass their courses and graduate on time?

Well, perhaps they should, but it just isn’t happening.

Federal statistics reveal that only 36 percent of the full-time students who began college in 2001 received a bachelor’s degree within four years.

Ouch.

All of the college educators that are reading this should be ashamed.

Not that there aren’t some really good college educators out there. But this should be a wake up call that massive reform is needed.

Most of the “real learning” that is taking place on college campuses actually occurs in graduate programs.

Sadly, many of these graduate programs are now dominated by foreigners.

In fact, close to half of all the graduate science students enrolled at colleges and universities in the United States are now foreigners.

Something is very, very wrong.

But should we be surprised that the quality of education at our colleges and universities has gone down so much when the quality of education at every level leading up to college is also declining?

Once upon a time, the United States had the best schools in the world, but according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Program for International Student Assessment, the United States is now just in the middle of the pack.

Have you seen our high schools lately? In some areas they are quite good, but in many other areas large numbers of students are graduating from high school barely being able to read.

So if college is not really about “education” these days, then what is it really all about?

Well, it is about making huge amounts of money.

College tuition continues to spiral out of control. Since 1982, the cost of medical care in the United States has gone up over 200%, which is horrific, but that is nothing compared to the cost of college tuition which has gone up by more than 400%.

To point out how ridiculous tuition bills have become, one college student named Nic Ramos recently packed a 33-pound duffle bag full of $1 bills and used it to pay his college tuition for one semester. Needless to say, $14,300 in one dollar bills was not easy to put together. Just check out the video posted below….

Unfortunately, money does not grow on trees, so these massive tuition bills are leaving many of our young people with huge debt loads as they graduate from college.

On average, college students that graduated in 2009 left school with an average of $24,000 in student loan debt. In fact, approximately two-thirds of all college students in the United States now graduate with student loans.

So is it all worth it?

Well, it depends who you ask.

Many of our new college graduates are having a really hard time finding jobs.

According to the Project on Student Debt, unemployment for new college graduates stood at 8.7 percent in 2009, which was way up from 5.8 percent in 2008.

But even those that do find jobs are being forced to take jobs that they don’t even need college educations for. The “underemployment rate” among college students has risen dramatically in recent years.

In 1992, there were 5.1 million “underemployed” college graduates in the United States. In 2008, there were 17 million “underemployed” college graduates in the United States.

Many of our brightest young minds are now flipping burgers or are welcoming people to Wal-Mart.

In fact, in the United States today 317,000 waiters and waitresses have college degrees.

Meanwhile, a lot of these young Americans are absolutely drowning in debt. Americans now owe more than $875 billion on student loans, which is more than the total amount that Americans owe on their credit cards.

So how are these young people making it?

Well, they are moving back in with Mommy and Daddy of course.

According to a recent survey by Twentysomething Inc., a staggering 85 percent of college seniors planned to move back home after graduation last May.

What a great “education” system we have, eh?

So what do you think about the state of college education in the United States today? Please feel free to leave a comment with your opinion below….