So I\u2019m not going to be able to fix the problem of high college costs. I don\u2019t know how to force administrators to care about keeping tuition under control, or even lowering it. I don\u2019t know how to interest employers in some alternative to hiring college graduates, regardless of the value of the course of study, just because of the credential itself. But here\u2019s what I would do with respect to remedial education. <\/p>\n
The numbers show up periodically \u2014 shockingly high percentages of students taking at least one, if not more than one remedial class, having their graduation delayed and being set up for lower success rates in college in general. And the fix is easy \u2014 and something the government can do in fairly short order. <\/p>\n
(1) Don\u2019t allow federal financial aid to be applied to remedial classes, and don\u2019t allow universities to \u201ccook the books\u201d by providing institutional financial aid for these classes and deeming the federal financial aid as applied to the remainder of the tuition. You want to go to college when you\u2019re not prepared? Then pay for it yourself. <\/p>\n
(2) Require (as a condition of the various funds the feds disburse) that high schools accept all students regardless of age who can benefit from their course of instruction, with no or minimal tuition, and provide appropriate alternate instruction (e.g., night classes) where needed. This means that a student who left high school some years ago and wants to return, can do so, even if they\u2019re now in their 20s. And a student who has amassed enough credits to graduate but isn\u2019t prepared to attend college, can continue, in a form of 13th grade, to take those college prep classes that they missed previously, or even to take AP classes (which are becoming, for all intents and purposes, the equivalent of \u201cA\u201d levels in the U.K., if I understand their system correctly, except administered by a private organization rather than by the government). Of course, if a student enrolls but fails to attend, the school could establish a policy of exclusion from further coursework or charge \u201cfull cost\u201d fees. <\/p>\n
I was thinking about this because of a conversation on facebook \u2014 and because, when the school district continuing education brochure comes around a couple times a year, there\u2019s always information on GED exam tutoring and classes, but nothing on high school completion. I looked around on the internet, and, in fact, this doesn\u2019t really seem to exist. My local high school district doesn\u2019t offer this, except for young adults, who would be on track to finish by age 21, and a search on the internet brought up only programs offered by some community colleges. <\/p>\n
And, of course, if you look at the remedial classes offered at the local community collge \u2014 well, they have a single \u201creading\u201d course vaguely worked as, basically, we teach you anything you don\u2019t know about reading, as needed, to prepare you for college; and they have math courses starting at addition and subtraction. As for other subject matter \u2014 science, history, etc. \u2014 if you didn\u2019t learn it in high school and you\u2019re not ready to learn it at the college level, you\u2019re never going to. <\/p>\n
My sense is that the G.E.D. has replaced the adult high school diploma nearly universally \u2014 and my expectation (though I don\u2019t have any direct experience) is that passing the G.E.D. isn\u2019t really a marker of the sort of skills needed to begin college work. Which means that if the only path, for those who miss the traditional route, is GED + remedial classes at collge, we\u2019re failing in the design of our school system.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
So I\u2019m not going to be able to fix the problem of high college costs. I don\u2019t know how to force administrators to care about keeping tuition under control, or even lowering it. I don\u2019t know how to interest employers in some alternative to hiring college graduates, regardless of the value of the course of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n