Do students learn anything in college?

Recent WSJ headline: "Exclusive Test Data: Many Colleges Fail to Improve Critical-Thinking Skills."  Higher education is already being criticized for being overly expensive, stifling free speech with political correctness, and having all too many graduates without jobs.  Now we have a new claim: that many students do not really learn much as they accumulate credit hours.

The study cited by WSJ compares scores on a critical thinking test taken by freshmen and seniors at a wide range of schools.  At some prestigious schools (e.g., UT-Austin), the scores of seniors are about the same as those of freshmen.  The schools with the largest "improvement" in scores include Plymouth State and Western Carolina.  

On the surface this would imply that higher education is not delivering on its promise to develop higher level critical thinking skills.  Here is another interpretation: schools like UT-Austin admit students with very strong skills in this dimension to begin with, so the change in scores is negligible three years later.  Also, the composition of the test-taking class changes considerably in some schools.  Almost half of the freshmen at Plymouth State and Western Carolina never graduate, so most of the score increase at those schools could be explained by weeding out the weakest students.

Finally, critical thinking skills are important but they are not the sole measure of academic accomplishment.  Compare the scores of freshmen and seniors on subjects such as biochemistry, electrical engineering, and finance to get a better overall picture.