Three out of four students who enter California community colleges seeking a degree drop out in frustration, researchers estimate.
Most students are unprepared for college work, reports the Contra Costa Times. The story features an instructor who estimates only a third of his pre-algebra students will make it to algebra, a course they were supposed to have mastered in eighth grade.
One in 10 students at the lowest remedial levels — community colleges sometimes have up to five courses below the lowest college-level course — reaches a college-level course in that subject. The numbers are worse for black and Latino students.
Chaffey College in middle-class Rancho Cucamonga faced the remedial crisis in 1999:
Using a broader definition of underpreparedness than most schools, Chaffey educators determined that 98 percent of their students were unprepared for college work in at least one basic area.
The realization led to the most radical transformation of a community college in the nation. The school began hiring more basic-skills instructors, sometimes delaying the hiring of professors in fields such as biology and sociology.
With tutoring at “success centers,” the college tripled the number of students who transfer to a four-year university.
In addition to academic failure, students run into bureaucratic obstacles to earning a degree. There’s been a huge push to persuade students to go to college but not much to help them succeed once they get there. Students who are the first in their family to college tend to be the first to give up.
For many, college is a mysterious labyrinth, with ill-conceived bureaucratic literature heavy with eye-glazing language such as “matriculation” and “articulation” to explain basic concepts, educators say.
. . . “Matriculation is a state-mandated process,” the (Los Medanos College) site notes, “which promotes a mutual commitment by faculty, staff, and students to work together to help students develop clear educational goals and be successful in reaching those goals.”
Simply put, matriculation is when a student registers for classes.
Years ago, educators realized the “articulation” process is a mess: Students can earn credits at a community college and then discover they’re not valid for transfer to a four-year university because there’s no “articulation” agreement between the two institutions. This was supposed to be fixed 15 years ago, then 10 years ago. It’s still a problem.
I appreciate the efforts that the community colleges are putting into the remediation, but is that really their job? Shouldn’t there be some accountability from the high schools that graduated these students despite the lack of skills?
Algebra is not “mastered” in eighth grade. It is not even “mastered” by the average college graduate, who may pass an Algebra course or two but still cannot solve basic algebraic problems. Perhaps presenting Algebra to students with fifth or sixth grade level math skills (at best) is part of the problem with these students. Or, perhaps they didn’t belong in college in the first place?
Yes, remediation does belong at the community college. Community college is school for adults in the community, including adults who are not ready for college-level work. Some community colleges work with local K-12 school systems to improve preparation, but meanwhile, there the underprepared students are. They can’t go back to sixth grade to learn punctuation and equations.
I recently heard the president of our local community college speak. She talked with pride about the students who transfer to UCs and Cal State campuses, but she also talked with pride about the new remediation classes for students who don’t yet understand fractions, and the fine vocational/technical programs there. It’s all part of the community college mandate.
I have some personal experience with students in low level college math courses. I have reason to think that knowledge and understanding of fractions is so weak in many students that they connot expect to ever succeed in college algebra. I have put an article on my website that expands a bit on this idea. Here’s a link. http://www.brianrude.com/fractionsquiz.htm
Why are people who can’t grasp pre-algebra in college? Shouldn’t there be some other word for their education? This is remedial education for people whose high school diploma has less value than toilet paper.
During my 32 years torturing undergraduates at Middlesex County College (Edison, NJ) I got in the habit of asking older students in my evening class what the institution they attended might have done to retain them. All—without exception—replied that they were simply not ready. Nothing their respective institutions could have done would have made a difference.
The official statistics I’ve seen simply do not recognized this attritional category.
In the first years of my service I funcioned as an assistant dean (being entitled “administrative assistant to the dean” in order to deceive the Board of Trustees). As such I was conscripted to attend various conferences on attrition. Back then the prevailing doctrine was that students should be coaxed into a “major” to improve retention. Decades later the doctrine seems to be that they should be coaxed into declaring liberal arts-general as their curriculum choice. The attrition rates remain unaltered. The conferences, studies, papers, and books continue unabated.
Addendum: One of our presidents in a strange fit of honesty once publically admitted that the students in the lowest category of remedial reading almost never graduated.
Thos familiar with the patois called “Presidentialian” will recognize that “almost” really means never.
Cal said, Why are people who can’t grasp pre-algebra in college? Shouldn’t there be some other word for their education? This is remedial education for people whose high school diploma has less value than toilet paper.
Thank you, Cal. Yes, there should be another word for the education of students who can’t grasp pre-algebra. It’s called middle school or high school. It should NOT be called college. Call it “community education” or “adult education” if you wish. But don’t call it college.
But a part of what community colleges do is adult education.
Should pre-algebra courses count as courses toward a college degree? No, of course not. Should community colleges teach adults who want to learn pre-algebra? Sure. That’s what community colleges are for: to teach adults.
Cardinal Fang said, But a part of what community colleges do is adult education.
Agreed–just don’t call it college, because it’s not. Of course, most of what we call college today is not college either. It’s just job training.
Yeah, this reminds me of my Valley College days back in 1967. All my friends were going to JC, so I figured I had to go, too. I had this Simca with a four-speed on the column that my buddy and I took to school in the mornings. I’d ripped the back seat out to make a bed, and while he was in class, I’d sleep through my classes. Well, a date with Mary Jane the night before will do that to ya.
Going nowhere in life, I joined the military, spent 18 months in Japan and 12 in Vietnam.
Flash forward four years and I’m attending a private 4-year liberal arts college and getting A’s and B’s. Truth is I wasn’t ready for JC at the age of 18. Had a lot of maturing to do and, in the process, found a goal to focus on. I wonder how older JC students do compared with freshmen right out of high school? Bet there’s a significant difference.