Now I should be able to make more money, communicate more effectively and live life more fully. At least that’s what my high school counselor promised my life would be like if I got a college education.

Personally, I think I have just gotten more stupid. That’s right, I think I’ve lost brain cells in college.

After four years of classes, homework and living on my own, I don’t think my college-self would be able to hold an intelligent conversation with my high school-self. And I have the data to prove it.

In high school, I tutored geometry and algebra; now I can’t remember what the i function on my calculator means, nor do I remember the formula to find the circumference of a circle.

Math isn’t the only subject in which I have regressed. I was looking at a critical essay I wrote my freshman year in college about a poem, and I had to look up half of the terms in my old English textbook — what exactly is iambic pentameter anyway?

To prove to myself that I really had learned something in college, I set out to retake the ACT.

The ACT has changed slightly in the last seven years, and it was too late to register to take the real test anyway, so naturally I took one of those free online tests at www.4tests.com in an attempt to re-create the ACT that nearly gave me ulcers my junior year in high school.

Seven years ago I scored a 26 out of 36 — not too bad of a score seeing how BYU-Idaho asks for a composite score of 16, according to the Admissions Office.

My highest score was in English at 29, followed closely by a mathematics score of 27. In comparison, I pretty much bombed the other two sections — reading and science — so we won’t talk about those.

I am happy to report that as a communication major with a minor in English, both my English and reading scores increased. My high school algebra teacher would be horrified to learn that my math score went from one of my highest scores to tying for lowest. And science — let’s just say it never was my best subject.

Overall, I got nearly two points lower after four more years of education.

I sure hope I learned something in college.