It’s not automatically bad that they have to retake a class in college that they took in high school. The simple fact of the matter is, unless you took AP or CLEP courses in high school, you have had no exposure to the difficulty of college courses. This is nothing new.
I know this is a long time ago but in the early 1960 s if you did well in Academic Courses (which implied developing good study habits), you generally did well in college.
It is a shame that today's parents are paying for the same education twice. They pay once in High School via local taxes and again in college tuition.
The greatest country in the world has the most expensive education system in the world, but a far cry from the best.
It’s not automatically bad that they have to retake a class in college that they took in high school. The simple fact of the matter is, unless you took AP or CLEP courses in high school, you have had no exposure to the difficulty of college courses. This is nothing new.
These remedial courses did not exist at state universities when I attended in the mid 70s and early 80s. It was sink or swim and many entering freshmen sank. 30% of the students on my dorm floor did not come back after Christmas my freshman year. These students learned an important truth at a fraction of the cost of underperforming their way through a four year program. So, you are correct that unprepared students are nothing new.
What is new is the erosion of standards for what used to be a college prep high school diploma. This has been accompanied by an increased view of educational egalitarianism- that all should go to college, not just those who through a combination of aptitude and hard work were well prepared.
I don't think this move has been altogether altruistic - look at the explosion in the number of colleges, the market for student loans, and for textbooks. This is big business. Others in the thread have correctly noted is that the colleges are not really footing the bill for these remedial classes - these costs are passed on to the student. Colleges and lenders are quite happy to let a student fund these courses with loans. The 'dirty little secret' is that these courses and costs do not count toward the degree. The student acquires debt for what they should have learned in high school.
This also means that the taxpayers (like us) who typically paid for that high school education have been defrauded as well - the student was given a diploma without possessing/retaining the expected skills.
The simple fact of the matter is, unless you took AP or CLEP courses in high school, you have had no exposure to the difficulty of college courses. This is nothing new.”
I don’t recognize the abphabet soup you are referring to. I graduated 51 years ago, and then, the ones which were most likely to actually qualify and go to college were steered into “College Prep” courses. Harder subjects, stricter teachers, more homework, and bulletin boards in the classromm where you could take sttempts at solving extra problems for extra credit. Specially in the math classes, where the teacher came from a military school.
We learned alot from him, and most of the rest of our teachers were no slouches.