[dragonwriter]

> Especially since (at least in my experience) basically none of the math courses at University level involve a calculator.

A lot of non-math courses (e.g., in the sciences) at University level involve numeric computations that want some type of calculation device to avoid needless pain, and the math that is tested on the SAT feeds into those courses as well as math courses.

[lasagnaphil]

Yeah, but I really don't get that you need to be "educated" to use a calculator - it's just something that's just too banally simple. It's definitely not a skill that needs to be explicitly prepared for high schoolers getting into college.

And to be honest, you don't really need one of those fancy expensive TI graphing calculators to do all those physics/chemistry problem sets. You just need a good-enough scientific calculator (for example, a cheap Sharp one you can get for $20 bucks) and there would be almost no difference in the time it takes to finish your homework.