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Editorial originally published Sunday, January 20, 2008
Students need help in preparing for college
The awakening, for many young people, is as rude as a bucketful of ice water.
They’ve graduated from high school and enrolled at a university or community college. They’ve secured scholarships, grants and loans to help pay for their education. They’ve accepted congratulations for pursuing their dreams.
And then they find they are unprepared for college work.
Federal statistics show that as many as four in 10 college freshmen require at least one remedial course. The rate is higher at community colleges. More than 80 percent of freshmen in the Metropolitan Community College system need catch-up courses.
High schools are preparing more young people to enroll in college. But many students are not being groomed to succeed in higher education.
The cost of that failure is exorbitant. Young people pay college prices for remedial courses that don’t result in college credits. The odds of these students staying in school plummet.
Inadequate preparation is a big reason why the percentage of adults with four-year degrees has barely increased since 1980, even though enrollment of freshmen has climbed steadily. Only about half the people who enter college graduate.
The problem begins with high schools that promote students before they have mastered grade-level reading and math skills.
“Sometimes students come in reading at the 5th or 6th grade level,” said Jackie Snyder, Metropolitan Community Colleges chancellor. “They’re not ready to do college algebra. I’m not trying to place blame on the students or the high schools, but this is where we are.”
Beyond that is a disconnect between high school standards and college expectations.
In a recent national survey by the non-profit research and assessment firm that develops the ACT test, 65 percent of college faculty said their states’ standards prepared students poorly or very poorly for college-level work. But most high school teachers thought they were readying students for college by meeting state requirements.
The same disconnect showed up in interviews The Star conducted with area education leaders.
School district superintendents thought high school standards for Missouri and Kansas prepared students to do college work. Some college leaders disagreed.
Clearly, colleges and school systems need to communicate better.
There is little interaction in either Kansas or Missouri between public institutions of higher education and the boards that set standards for elementary and secondary education.
Reggie Robinson, president of the Kansas Board of Regents, said he could remember only two occasions over the last five years when the higher education agency met with the Kansas Board of Education.
Likewise, Missouri’s Department of Elementary and Secondary Education doesn’t coordinate academic standards with colleges and universities in any formal way.
Universities are understandably wary about demanding uniformity - from themselves or from high schools. But some alignment of high school learning and college expectations makes sense.
Local community colleges have seen good results when they’ve communicated with school districts about the skills that students need.
Colleges could help by connecting with students in the 9th and 10th grades and advising them and their parents on how to prepare academically.
High schools, for their part, must offer courses that better prepare students for college work. Even high-performing schools allow some students to slide by without mastering skills they will need.
The community can help, too, by providing tutors and mentors to students in high school and the early years of college. That kind of help is especially needed by first-generation college students.
Students with support systems are much more likely to graduate from high school and remain in college.
Work must be performed with urgency on all fronts. It’s a cruel disservice to send students to college without the skills they will need to succeed.
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