More Americans are getting college degrees than they did about a decade ago, but skills in reading and analyzing data among the well-educated have dropped significantly, according to a national report on literacy released yesterday.

When adults with higher-education degrees were asked to compare the viewpoints in two newspaper editorials, for example, or to interpret a table about blood pressure, fewer than half could do it successfully.

"I think these results are really unexpected," said Mark Schneider, the U.S. commissioner of education statistics. A former university professor, Schneider was particularly concerned about the results.

"I think it is a wake-up call to the research and university community," he said

...Schneider, who presented the results in Washington, D.C., said he was unsure what caused the decline in skills among people with higher-education degrees.

Many state universities, he said, now have open admissions policies that accept almost all high school graduates, including those who might not be as well prepared as their peers were decades earlier. In addition, colleges and universities are taking in a more diverse population that might have language or cultural challenges. Or, he said, colleges "may not be doing the job as effectively as they could be."