While many college students would argue that their main goal in getting a college education -- at least academically as opposed to socially -- is to receive the “credentials” necessary to get a well-paying job once they graduate (i.e., the degree and diploma, 4.0 GPA, etc.).

However, academics like me try to convince them as just as important, and perhaps even more important, is the goal of learning how to think -- acquiring the skills necessary to organize your time, problem-solve, collect and analyze information and data, write effectively, etc.

As it turns out, according to new research from a national survey of employers, managers and executives in the corporate world seem to agree with us -- they tend to value skills over credentials:

Overall, 65 percent of those surveyed believe that new graduates of four-year colleges have most or all of the skills to succeed in entry-level positions, but only 40 percent believe that they have the skills to advance. . . .

The employers were asked to rank new graduates on 12 key areas, and the grads did best in teamwork, ethical judgments and intercultural work, and worst in global knowledge, self-direction and writing. . . .

What the employers appear to want are intensive, personally evaluated projects, not more testing. . . . Forty-six percent said it would be very effective and 70 percent said it would be very or fairly effective to have students complete an advanced project as seniors, demonstrating knowledge in the major and in problem-solving, writing, and analytic skills.

And 69 percent said it would be very effective and 83 percent said it would be very or fairly effective to see an evaluation of a supervised internship where students apply college learning in a “real-world setting.”

The results appear to contradict statements from Education Secretary Margaret Spellings and many politicians that the business community is demanding tools that allow for comparisons of colleges on how they perform in certain areas.

The other key point to appreciate from the article is that, in addition to valuing skills over credentials, the employers also noted that in terms of assessing student skills, they value substantive, in-depth evaluations over “standardized” tests that the current administration favors.

In short, these are two areas in which we academics have been emphasizing all along. Hate to say it, but we told you so . . .