How to Save Billions and Better Prepare Students to Make Billions

This article was originally posted on The Huffington Post on May 8, 2013.

Last February, The National Center for Education reported that 50 percent of the 3 million students who begin college annually require some level of remediation. This trend costs students, parents, institutions, and taxpayers nearly $7 billion a year, while remedial students fail to earn a single college credit.

The high volume and costs of remediation have policymakers and education leaders scrambling to stop this financial hemorrhage. While reform in remedial education is inevitable, the unintended consequences of swooping changes can be harmful to students, institutions, and the economy at a time when the U.S. is struggling to fill the 21st century workforce with high-skilled workers.

Who are remediated students?

A report released today by the National Center on Education and the Economy states that many community college career programs demand little or no use of math, and high school students are taking math courses they will likely never use. In reading and writing, the group noted incoming college freshmen had simplistic and academically unchallenging skills. Finally, NCEE discovered that very little writing is required of community college freshmen, and when it is, there are low expectations for making a cogent argument and employing basic rules for writing, punctuation, and grammar. The report calls for the bar to be raised if students are to succeed in college, career, and life. Some of these same patterns exist for freshmen admitted to open admission four-year colleges.

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Preparation Before Remediation

Students’ lack of preparation takes on many forms beyond academic deficits. It shows up with them not knowing what to expect from college, not knowing how to anticipate challenges and obstacles, and not having the grit and determination to succeed. It shows up with their lack of follow through skills, and their not knowing how to take advantage of resources to craft a college experience that will deliver the abilities and connections to launch a successful career. It shows up with students lacking the emotional and social awareness to make sound choices and navigate college systems. And it surfaces with students embracing unrealistic expectations of what simultaneously can be managed, including: full and part-time work, families, social lives, and other demands.

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The Cost of Remediation: Preparing Students for College Success

As many as 1.7 million first-year students will take a remedial course to learn the math, reading, or writing skills they need to enroll in a college-level course. Whether urban, rural, suburban, low-income, athletic, artistic, academic, high-achieving, or low-achieving, too many of today’s students aren’t prepared for the challenge of higher education.

Remediating underprepared students is not a solution in and of itself. It can afford amazing opportunities to students who only need a refresher, like the returning student or the student who slacked off her last year in high school. However, sending students to a remedial college course who do not have a foundation of basic skills often leads to failure. In the report “Saving Now and Saving Later: How High School Reform Can Reduce the Nation’s Wasted Remediation Dollars,” researchers outline the “Real Cost of Remedial Education.”
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Do Remedial College Classes Cost More Than They’re Worth?

Only 32 percent of students who graduate from high school are academically prepared for college, according to research from the Manhattan Institute Center for Civic Information1. Remedial classes in English, writing, and math are offered at many of today’s community and four-year colleges to address the overwhelming amount of students leaving high school without basic mastery of their core subjects.

Remedial classes are controversial because their worth is questioned in the grand scheme of things. Yes, remedial classes can open opportunities for more students to enter college who otherwise wouldn’t have the academic credentials to pursue an associate’s degree or a bachelor’s degree. However, remedial classes can also offer a false hope to many students.

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