The End of Standards
A cautionary tale from the University of California
In 2016, the University of California San Diego (UCSD) started a new remedial math class, named Math 2. Before 2016, the lowest-level math course was Math 3C, which covers pre-calculus. While the vast majority of incoming freshmen were qualified to enter at least pre-calculus, a small number lacked the necessary high school algebra and geometry skills. Thus, Math 2 was launched to bridge the gap. For the first few years of the courses existence, less than one percent of students enrolled. The rest qualified for at least pre-calculus, if not calculus itself.
Then came Covid. Overnight, the need for Math 2 exploded. Instead of dozens, hundreds of incoming students were no longer competent in high school math. Even worse, instructors of Math 2 began to notice a disturbing trend. Not only were many incoming students deficient in high school math, many were not even proficient in middle school math. Some could not even answer the types of problems a bright forth grader could complete. It was so bad that only eight years after Math 2 was created as a remedial math course, it had to be replaced with a new remedial math course that would only cover material that is supposed by learned by the end of 8th grade. Hundreds of students would now spend their first semester as college students, not learning calculus or pre-calculus or even high school geometry, but middle school mathematics.
Just how bad is it? 84 students in the remedial math class couldn’t round 374518 to the nearest 100. This would be bad enough at any institution of higher education. At a school like UCSD, it’s unconscionable. UCSD may not get the fame or attention of UCLA or Berkeley, I think in large part because it participated in Division II sports until 2020, but it is a fantastic university. A top 10 public university, ranked right below the University of Virginia. UCSD should be pulling some of the best high school students in America. Instead, hundreds are being admitted who wouldn’t even do well on the admission test used by Catholic high schools.
The speed of decline is astounding. The incoming class of 2020 only had 32 students, or 0.05% of the class, not able to start their college career in pre-calculus, and tested into Math 2. For the incoming class of 2025, it was 921 students, or 11.8% of the class. 665 students couldn’t even test into the original, high school Math 2, and had to take the middle school version. The number of students not prepared for college math increased 30-fold in only a few years. On the other side of the spectrum, the percentage of students who tested into calculus II saw a significant decrease. These types of numbers seem impossible. How could incoming freshmen go from almost all being able to start with pre-calculus, to hundreds not even able to start in a course they should have been able to take their freshman year of high school?
The first cause is the complete decay of standards in the education system. While grade inflation at universities like Harvard has gotten a lot of attention, the real grade inflation is happening in high schools. Every objective measure, from UCSD math placement to the nationally taken NAEP exam, shows decreasing aptitude in math and reading. Yet, at the same time, the high school graduation rate has increased. For decades, about one in six students did not graduate from high school. Today, that number is closer to one in every 13.
Now, if that was because of better teaching and learning, it would be a sign of progress. Instead, it’s because students are being passed through the system en masse. In 2024, a depressing 80 high schools in the state of Illinois didn’t have a single student test as proficient in math. Not a single one. The high school diploma used to be a minimal standard bar. Go to class, do the work, and you’ll get a degree. Now, it’s simply given out to anyone who wants one. In one memorable reddit post, a user claiming to be a K-12 teacher says the following of today’s students:
Nothing motivates them. They fear nothing. They are incentivized by nothing. They simply do. not. care. The only time anything will be anything close to “turned in,” work-wise, is if I do it in class and make them hand it in. And 1/3 of the kids don’t do it. In a class of 25 I would say I have four or five students that I find “relatable,” as in the remind me of a typical student that I would have taught a decade ago or that would have existed when I was in school.
The results of such a system are not surprising. If teenagers are given no incentive to work hard, they will not work hard.
The second cause is that many universities, and the University of California system in particular, have abandoned standards in a quixotic quest for increased equity. In 2021, the University of California, arguably the greatest public institution of higher education in the history of the world, announced that standardized tests would be banned as an admissions consideration. Not made optional, but banned entirely. Even if an applicant includes his or her SAT results as supplemental material, admissions officials aren’t allowed to look at them. This was done, of course, because standardized tests are “racist”.
The left’s preoccupation with standardized tests is ass backwards. First, as UCSD shows, standardized tests are the only reliable way to evaluate one applicant against another. When entire high schools are using made-up grades, a standardized test is the only objective metric available. Otherwise, how is an admissions counselor supposed to compare a student who went to a college prep school with legions of AP classes and tutors, to a student in an under-resourced public school that doesn’t even have extracurriculars?
Second, while standardized tests do give an advantage to students attending good schools, they also provide students from bad schools the best way to prove themselves. There is no easier way to lay it all down and prove that you belong with the best. It doesn’t matter who you are or where you’re from; get a near-perfect score on the SAT and you’ll be granted admission to a good university. Somewhat counterintuitively, if standardized tests are removed, then the advantages of attending a good school only increase. As Jeremiah Quinlan, the dean of undergraduate admissions at Yale, says, “For students attending well-resourced high schools, substitutes for standardized tests are relatively easy to find: Transcripts brim with advanced courses, teachers are accustomed to praising students’ unique classroom contributions, and activities lists are full of enrichment opportunities. Increased emphasis on these elements, we found, has the effect of advantaging the advantaged.” Yale, of course, has made increasing diversity one of their main goals. If they are reverting to using standardized tests, they must be useful for underrepresented groups.
None of this is surprising. Advocates for standardized testing have been arguing for years that removing them will only increase the advantages of knowing how to play the game. As all the Ivy League schools have found out, not considering standardized tests makes it nearly impossible for a diamond in the rough to be discovered. How can they compete with students who have dedicated college guidance counselors and teachers used to writing glowing letters of recommendation?
The good news is that all of this is fixable through standardized tests. There should be some bar to graduate from high school. It should not be a high bar. But students should have to attend the school they are graduating from and have a basic knowledge of the subjects they have taken. A standardized test can prove this. Second, universities have to incorporate standardized tests into their application process. It shouldn’t be necessary to have a perfect or near-perfect score to get into a good school, but it should be sufficient. That’s the best way to make sure every high school student has the opportunity to attend a top university.
I don't believe that universities have reduced standards to promote "equity." It has been noted for many decades, well before I was born 42 yrs ago, that the first two years of US higher ed. are remedial, making up for our poor high school showing (a related nightmare). Whence UK's 3-yr programs. This is a long-standing trend, not anything begun recently.
All of these rounds of lowered admittance standards, it would seem, have to do with another problem altogether – cash flow. Universities have become growth-dependent businesses, and lowering standards increases their customer pool at a time when there are fewer and fewer young Americans, and hence fewer previously-qualified applicants. They NEED lowered standards to maintain their business model. They more students you admit, the more money you make. Basic economics. (And you can always just lie to the rankers about your admittance numbers, graduation rates, and job prospects – U.S. law schools showed us this definitively in the 2000-2010's).
I've read a lot about the problems of higher ed in the last 12-15yrs. I don't remember much of it. But I do remember coming across a critique of higher ed written by Friedrich Nietzsche in the 1870s that read like it could have been written today. The big takeaway from this, and others, is, now that unis lost their religious purpose – we really have no idea what the universities and higher ed is for, what ends do schools and education serve. In Germany Bismarck consolidated the universities into state apparatuses for industrial, political, and economic power, and we in the US adopted this "Ph.D." system. Meaning if you're not researching for political power, economic exploitation, or industrial innovation, you don't belong in the new university system. (A big change in higher ed took place in the US during the so-called "Progressive Era").
I would guess that most professors know little of the history of their own disciplines, and less of the history of US higher ed in general. There's just no incentive to possess this knowledge, and the knowledge itself is disturbing enough to quickly dissuade anyone who begins poking around.
Ultimate questions have to be raised, again and again...
The 30-fold increse in students needing remedial math at UCSD is absolutely shocking. What strikes me most is your point about standardized tests being the great equalizer rather than an obstracle. Without objective metrics, students from under-resourced schools lose their best shot at proving they belong. The irony is palpable when even Yale is reversing course and bringing back testing requirements. Are there any data on how other UC campuses are fairing with this same issue?