It's not even that high if you set the bar where most Hacker News readers would say that a person is capable. Just 15% are supposedly college-level, and from ex

It's not even that high if you set the bar where most Hacker News readers would say that a person is capable. Just 15% are supposedly college-level, and from experience in college I can say that "college-level" isn't always what you'd hope it to be. What portion of the population can open to a random page of something like "Campbell Biology", read the text, and actually understand at least the non-technical aspects of the text? (that is, ignoring the biology-specific terms that were explained in prior pages of the book) This is a single-digit percentage. Heck, what portion of the population can understand my comment or yours? It's well below 65%. Illiteracy is one of those things that can be a real shocking eye-opener for a person who has read well for as long as they can remember. Things you take for granted -- like reading uncommon (not memorized) road signs -- are just not possible for a large portion of the population.