How could this possibly be true?

According to this interesting article:

"Even more worrisome, the National Center for Education Statistics has found that nearly 70 percent of college graduates could not correctly perform basic tasks like comparing opposing editorials. And Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa's recent work, Academically Adrift, found startlingly low gains in students' critical thinking, complex reasoning, and communication skills. Given these findings, it seems clear that the function of grades in meaningfully differentiating student learning has eroded."

70%?!?!?

Is this true? 

I am a little skeptical since this may be something ginned up to start a panic to funnel more money into academia, but if it is true, it says that we've wasted a lot of money for a long time.