The skills, understandings, and special attributes that a competent college student should acquire are described. General skills in writing, reading, speaking, and calculating are primarily the responsibility of elementary and secondary education, and these skills must be mastered by every college student. In addition to a specification of these general skills, a listing is provided of the basic understandings of the following concepts that are needed for intelligent adult behavior: democracy and citizenship, history and geography, science, economics, literature, and self-directed learning. Special attributes that a college graduate should develop are: the ability to reason or think critically; acquaintance with the major methods of inquiry; perspectives of some of the important scholarly, literary, and artistic achievements of the past; a knowledge of our form of government; a moral sensibility for both personal and institutional behaviors that affect the human values of mutual respect, cooperation, and integrity; and a heightened sense of personal awareness both of oneself and one's place in society. (SW)