New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said the remedial courses at the 11 senior colleges of the City University of New York were unfit for institutions of higher learning. Several Oklahoma state legislators tried unsuccessfully to ban remedial courses at the University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State University. Regional or junior colleges could take up the slack, they said. But that overlooks the inconvenience suffered by bright and energetic students who need a brush-up in just one subject. The American system of higher education is the largest and most productive in the world, but its administrators worry about too few students completing their courses.
Research shows that remedial education can help.
We don't know if remedial course-taking has increased in colleges, because there is little historical data. Large numbers of the students who take remedial courses have been out of school for a while. At NOVA, only 33 percent of students in remedial courses have enrolled directly from high school. Warren Scott said his remedial math course took him back to the beginning of his troubles with that subject. There are many useful indicators of failure in the public schools, but remedial course-taking in college is not one of them.