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He argues that readiness develops through early schooling and cultural literacy, including knowledge of how ideas, language, and institutions like libraries function. He also illustrates the necessity of cultural literacy through contrasts between real adolescents and the fictional Tarzan, whose lack of literacy would undermine meaningful engagement and academic success.",{"@graph":69,"@context":122},[70,84,105],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":20,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/exam/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/free-college-and-the-problem-of-college-readiness/588197/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/free-college-and-the-problem-of-college-readiness/588197.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"Aditya","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-10-30","2026-10-15",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":14},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",{"@type":106,"mainEntity":107},"FAQPage",[108,114,118],{"name":109,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":111},"What concern does Toby raise about offering free community college?","Question",{"text":112,"@type":113},"Toby argues that free tuition without evaluating or supporting college readiness would underestimate the educational problems underprepared students would face.","Answer",{"name":115,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":116},"How does Toby define college readiness in relation to cultural literacy?",{"text":117,"@type":113},"He explains that adolescents develop readiness partly through early schooling and cultural literacy—learning concepts, vocabulary, and how institutions and information work.",{"name":119,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":120},"Why does Toby use the example of Tarzan?",{"text":121,"@type":113},"He uses Tarzan as a mental experiment to show that without cultural literacy, a student would struggle to understand lectures, complete assignments, and engage with the academic purpose of college.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":124,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":126,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":128,"site_id":62},588197,1792064732,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":131},{"doc_id":128,"user_id":132,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":133,"doc_module":4,"category_id":19,"category_name":20,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":134,"file_id":135,"file_url":136,"file_type":137,"file_size":138,"view_count":14,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":19,"language":139,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":140,"faqs":141,"seo_title":142,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":129,"read_time":52,"preview_page_count":4},962085564549,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_085a072bc5b1113ac321206ff7593b45","Acad. Quest . (2021) 34.3 DOI 10. 51845/34 .3.16  \nFree College and the Problem of College Readiness  \nJackson Toby  \nPresident Biden has proposed free community college and substantial subsidies at public four-year colleges. If he means to require the beneficiaries to demonstrate that they have enough aptitude to graduate if they choose to study, the idea would be in the tradition of Thomas Jefferson’s 1817 plan for selecting students of “genius” for scholarship admission to the University of Virginia. But President Biden has never mentioned college readiness to accompany financial aid for college students. If he means to make college available for free without vetting student beneficiaries for college readiness, he is underestimating the educational problem underprepared students would impose.  \nAdolescents develop college readiness partly by early schooling. In addition to reading, writing, and arithmetic, they learn to be “culturally literate,” the term coined by University of Virginia Professor E. D. Hirsch to describe what people need to know in order to understand the world in which they will live. For instance, they learn that “geography” refers to oceans and distant countries and “insect” refers to mosquitoes and flies that they see around them. The word“library” is not simply a building containing objects called “books”; a culturally literate person knows that the books contain information on a wide variety of subjects and that the books are carefully stored according to their content so they can be found and perhaps borrowed for further study by interested patrons. Crucially, the culturally literate adolescent learns that answers to many questions are available in library books.  \nCultural literacy develops not only in school but in the family and the neighborhood. For instance, in a family a child may learn that a “meal” is not simply getting fed but an activity that takes place around a table at a prearranged time with particular people who are expected to be present. A person also gets culturally literate from learning why people go to stores and jobs and libraries.  \nJackson Toby is professor emeritus of sociology at Rutgers University, where he was director of the Institute for Criminological Research; [jtoby@scarletmail. rutgers.edu. His most](jtoby@scarletmail. rutgers.edu. His most) recent book is The Lowering of Higher Education in America (Praeger 2009). Toby last appeared in AQ in the summer of 2021 with“Students Are Literate but They Do Not Read.”  \nThe people rushing to catch commuter trains or buses in the early morning are not heading for parties. They want to get to work on time.  \nCultural literacy is not usually considered among the specific requisites necessary for college readiness. But without considerable cultural literacy, adolescents would not be curious enough about the world they live in and about the thoughts of previous generations to learn more about these unknowns at college. They don’t need to have narrowed their interests to a specific field of knowledge, but they do need to recognize that the main purpose of attending college is to find a field in which to study seriously. As a mental experiment showing why cultural literacy is necessary, consider why the fictional Tarzan would not be ready for college. Tarzan of the Apes, a novel published in 1912, told the story of an infant born to English parents, Viscount and Lady Greystoke, who was adopted and raised by a nurturant ape mother in an African jungle after the death of his parents. This implausible novel became very popular, making its author, Edgar Rice Burroughs, rich and famous. Burroughs wrote twenty-four volumes of Tarzan sequels; and Hollywood studios made at least a dozen Tarzan movies and a television series about him. Burroughs did not imagine Tarzan attending college. Had he done so, Tarzan’s fans would probably have believed that Tarzan’s natural intelligence was evident enough to get him admitted to college without grad","cbCaienYWVER28j9","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaienYWVER28j9","pdf",193667,"English","# Free College and the Problem of College Readiness\n## The limits of free tuition without readiness\n## Cultural literacy as a core component of readiness\n## Learning in family and neighborhood\n## Why Tarzan would not be ready for college","[{\"question\":\"What concern does Toby raise about offering free community college?\",\"answer\":\"Toby argues that free tuition without evaluating or supporting college readiness would underestimate the educational problems underprepared students would face.\"},{\"question\":\"How does Toby define college readiness in relation to cultural literacy?\",\"answer\":\"He explains that adolescents develop readiness partly through early schooling and cultural literacy—learning concepts, vocabulary, and how institutions and information work.\"},{\"question\":\"Why does Toby use the example of Tarzan?\",\"answer\":\"He uses Tarzan as a mental experiment to show that without cultural literacy, a student would struggle to understand lectures, complete assignments, and engage with the academic purpose of college.\"}]","Free College and the Problem of College Readiness | PDF"]