In today’s Pope Center Clarion Call, Jenna Ashley Robinson writes about the distressing fact that roughly half of the students who enroll in college are not regarded as “college ready.” Nevertheless, colleges admit them because they want paying customers. The fact that many students are not capable of handling college-level material is papered over by having them take “remedial courses.” The trouble is that you can’t really make up for 12 years of educational malpractice and neglect in a semester. Still, many of those students graduate eventually. They’re able to do that because academic standards have fallen so low in many academic departments. Take the easy courses, avoid the few remaining hard ones, and you get your degree!
Then you get a job serving coffee at Starbucks.