Some background quickly: A friend of mine is an adjunct professor at a prestigious, well know university. She was grading a midterm paper assignment and having trouble with it. She asked me to look at one of the papers to make sure she was not crazy. I eventually looked at all 30 papers.

All 30 SENIOR level students failed in my assessment. Most cannot even write english. Half don't know how to use a preposition and worse, an indefinite article. Let's not even describe word usage ("the factors effecting diagnosis factor into the disability factors."). But as for the papers themselves, they include a provided outline to follow. Not one student followed the outline making the papers impossible to grade.

I have to hire these people. If I asked them to write a study or a marketing report on a new product or update a standard operating procedure and this is the level of work provided by a college graduate from a respected university I would have to fire them.

This is the 5th time my friend has taught this course and this class is similar to the capabilities of the other classes. This demonstrates a systemic problem. Please, help me to understand what the hell is happening in education?