The study, "The Coming Crisis in Citizenship: Higher Education's Failure to Teach America's History and Institutions," tested more than 14,000 freshmen and seniors at various universities across the country to see how well students were prepared to fully participate as citizens of a democracy.,”According to a recent study, U.S. college students fail when it comes to knowing their own history.

The study, "The Coming Crisis in Citizenship: Higher Education's Failure to Teach America's History and Institutions," tested more than 14,000 freshmen and seniors at various universities across the country to see how well students were prepared to fully participate as citizens of a democracy.

Preparations for the study began five years ago. It is continually being conducted through the Intercollegiate Studies Institute as a part of its American Civic Literacy Program.

"We wanted this information for some academic programs we were developing and were shocked to find that it had never been collected," said Mike Ratliff, executive director for the American Civic Literacy Program.

The overall average score for college seniors was a meager 53.2 percent; freshmen scored just 51.7 percent.

"I was surprised that there was, in fact, negative learning found on many campuses. You could look at the results for a senior at Yale and find that they knew no more on this subject than when they graduated high school," Ratliff said.

The study is run by the Department of Public Policy at the University of Connecticut. Questions for the test were prepared by a group of professors from various schools, then tested for clarity. After the test was finalized, it was administered over the course of a week on the campuses of the selected schools.

The University of Connecticut staff that organized the study selected schools from various categories they designed. Schools ranged from well-known Ivy League schools to smaller, lesser-known colleges.

Marquette was not included in the study, but Ratliff said he thought the school would have done well had it participated.

"Marquette would be expected to do better than average in the study because of the classroom attention students receive," he said.

The level of political activism on campus may have been a factor in the results.

"The schools that did poorly had significantly lower levels of political participation on their campuses," said Chris Barnes, University of Connecticut pollster and principal investigator in the study. "The more people know, the more they tend to participate politically."

There was also no link found between how a school fared and how well known it was.

"We thought the better-known schools would reflect their prestige, but there was no correlation," Ratliff said.

The challenge the study presents is how to better prepare students for becoming knowledgeable citizens.

"It disturbs me that the seniors don't know this information. As citizens we have to understand who we are and how we got here. A good sense of our history is often required to make good decisions on certain issues," said Kristen Foster, assistant professor of history at Marquette.

"As a culture we're more concerned with consumption than intellectual improvement," she said. "Today, more students seem to go to college with the purpose of being able to get a job, rather than become good citizens. That has to change."

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