Posted on 11/13/2025 7:26:20 AM PST by yesthatjallen
UC San Diego said there is a 30% surge in new entrants who can’t do basic math. Want to bet they know how to protest though?
We are being dumbed down.
According to Inside Higher Ed, the number of first-year students at the University of California, San Diego, whose math skills fall below a middle school level has increased nearly 30-fold over the past five years, according to a new report from the university’s Senate–Administration Working Group on Admissions.
One in eight students are below a MIDDLE SCHOOL LEVEL despite having a solid math GPA. It sounds like they are inflating grades.
The number of first-year students in remedial math courses at the university surged to 390 in fall 2022, up from 32 students in fall 2020.
Professors discovered that students had knowledge on an elementary level in some cases. In fall 2025, 921 students enrolled in one of these two courses—11.8 percent of the incoming class.
“This deterioration coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects on education, the elimination of standardized testing, grade inflation, and the expansion of admissions from under-resourced high schools (DEI-ism),” the report states. “The combination of these factors has produced an incoming class increasingly unprepared for the quantitative and analytical rigor expected at UC San Diego.”
SNIP
(Excerpt) Read more at independentsentinel.com ...
And 3 in 8 can’t read their high school diplomas.
Ya, tell me again the value of teachers.
It is the exception, not the rule that teachers actually teach. The majority of them are lazy, Dunning–Kruger infected, low IQ, indoctrinating jerks
And they wonder why businesses want to import H1B people...
” NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND”==ON STEROIDS -—AT ALL COSTS.....
THE COST IS NO SKILLS WHEN OUT OF HS.
I WOULD BET NONE CAN BALANCE A CHECKBOOK. TODAY”S KIDS THINK THE BANKS DO THAT FOR THEM-——
VERY GRATEFUL I WENT TO A ONE ROOM SCHOOL
HAVE DONE ACCOUNTING SINCE 1957-—WAS RECRUITED OUT OF HS BY KROGER TO WORK IN THEIR DIVISIONAL OFFICES IN MADISON, WIS.
Ping
Are the UCs in California one of many universities that have eliminated the SAT as a condition of admission? - I’m guessing so. Some of these universities have reversed themselves and are now mandating SAT scores again - after admitting too many who neither read nor compute well.
Can’t imagine the SAT math section being dumbed down that much - but maybe so.
Math is for suckers.
Weze gots computas.
Part of the problem here is the universities admitting students that they shouldn’t be admitting in the first place.
Retired urban public high school teacher here. I taught math and science.
A huge problem is the over-reliance on calculators. In the pre-calculator era we taught things like estimation, rounding, adding fractions by hand, etc.
Those skills are now rarely taught. Instead, pull out the magic calculator.
In the district where I taught, teachers were actually forbidden to have their students memorize the times tables. Everything HAD to be done by calculator.
So don’t blame the students for this mess. And don’t blame the teachers. Blame the idiots at the top who send out one crazy directive after another.
The bigger problem are those universities are indoctrinating the future teaches to be like this.
It is way more what those universities promote that is the problem as opposed to the admission practices.
If I was told to do something destructive at my power plant I would quit my job, teachers being told to teach in a “destructive” way have the obligation to do the same.
Teachers do not deserve a pass by claiming they are only following orders.
“ A huge problem is the over-reliance on calculators”
Absolutely the reason. Get rid of calcs. Return to log tables.
So don’t blame the students for this mess. And don’t blame the teachers. Blame the idiots at the top who send out one crazy directive after another.
It is caused, at base, because Leftist philosophy has many assumptions about the nature of reality which are false. Start with false assumptions, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. Many of your “solutions” are going to cause bigger problems.
About ten years ago, I watched a German documentary piece...how German companies chose kids for their apprentice program. So this baker (in his 50s) would pick two kids (age 14 to 16) each spring for his program.
He had a test...just 10 questions. A recipe required 6 ingredients for 100 breads was one example. If you were only baking 50 breads...how much of each were required. About half of the kids applying...could not answer the 50-percent question.
My impression...schools are not teaching you how to apply math...just test, and pass.
When these situations occur, they should be expelled.
It’s a complicated mess. You can choose to not believe it if you wish, but most teachers enter the field because of their love of the subject. And yes, there are bums, too. For sure.
So when faced with these stupid directives, most of us chose to carefully work around them. Teach what the students need, but don’t be too obvious about it.
Let me give you an example.
Near the end of my career I taught physics. And I was given a list of topics to teach. Okey, fine. But I was told to teach only those topics. Any deviation was a firing offense.
“Torque” was missing from the list. And torque is a big deal in physics. I actually think it was an oversight. No matter. It was not in the list. So do not teach it.
I taught torque anyway. Just disguised it a little should a supervisor walk in.
I was far from alone in that regard. You do the best you can.
People with 70 IQ don’t do math.
Typical Commiefornia student response: 1 in 8? What is that? Like half?
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