40% of American college admits require some remedial education. I am not surprised. It's not to blame the secondary schools. It's just that we have people going to college who aren't college material - at least not yet.
The fact is that higher education is a booming industry in America, subsidized and supported by countless state and federal programs. Many of these schools are desperate for warm, paying bodies to fill their seats. Anybody can get into some college today, and they will do their darndest to keep him there because lower-tier schools need the income to survive (and need to report decent graduation rates).
We have become a nation of degree mills producing meaningless pieces of very expensive paper. I have interviewed many such people from lower tier schools and can report that they should not have bothered. They had the illusion that we might pay them more to do a clerical job if they had that degree from Eastern CT State College. Surprise, surprise - they can't do algebra, compose a literate and grammatical business letter, or get their minds around an abstract concept.
Who is the bigger sucker: Me, whose taxes subsidize the school? Or them, for wasting years when they could have been doing or learning something useful?
Here are the Five Myths of Remedial Ed.
