Unprepared College Students

Karime Silveyra

5 October 2011
Unprepared College Students
United States, one of the wealthiest countries in the world, is having issues concerning their education systems. Universities arebeing deluged with hundreds of thousands of students unprepared for college-level work. College students are severely unprepared and colleges around the country have not yet found the solution.
Sadly,almost half of the undergraduates in America never receive a degree. According to the author, “The deficiencies turn up not just in math, science and engineering, areas in which a growing chorus warnsof difficulties in the face of global competition, but also in the basics of reading and writing.” For instance, according to scores on the 2006 ACT college entrance exam only 21 percent of studentsare ready for college-level work. Most of the students think that because they graduated from high school they are ready for college. Students are still shocked when they are told they needdevelopmental courses,’’ said Donna McKusik, the senior director of developmental, or remedial, education at the Community College of Baltimore County. Even though 73 percent of students seek higher educationand four-year degrees in community colleges only 22 percent do so after six years. As an example, we have the College of Austin where only as little 15 percent get a bachelors degree, as shown ingraph 1. California State aimed to reduce the amount of unprepared freshmen to 10 percent by 2007 by testing students in their junior year in high school and had them improve their mistakes or what theywere missing in the 12th grade. Cal State failed to achieve their goal since nearly half of the high school juniors are still unprepared for college-level work.

1. 69 percent of students do notget any kind of award. (Texas Tribune)

Federal and state education officials suggested a new vision of education that goes from kindergarten through college graduation. They think this will help...