UCSD’s Freshmen Apply with 4.0 GPAs, But Fail Basic Math as Academic Standards Collapse
Realities cannot be jettisoned simply because they do not align with social justice goals.
I am not sure exactly what the exact count is for Professor Jacobson’s reasons that academia cannot be reformed. Perhaps we are on 16 million?
I am going to add another item to this count, sadly, from my alma mater, the University of California, San Diego (UCSD).
A newly released report by the Senate-Administration Workgroup on Admissions (SAWG) at this institution. This committee included faculty, administrators, and staff tasked with analyzing admissions practices and student math and writing preparation, and with making recommendations for improvement.
My colleague Mike LaChance covered it briefly earlier this week, but I wanted to expand on it, as this development hits me personally, especially given the data on students’ math knowledge.
As a former graduate student at UCSD, this data feels less surprising than it should (given all the news we cover at Legal Insurrection). However, it is deeply dispiriting for anyone who remembers the university’s previous academic standards.
NEW: UC San Diego has released a new report documenting a “steep decline in the academic preparedness” of its freshmen.
The number of entering students needing remedial math has exploded from 1/100 to 1/8.
They’ve had to create a second remedial class covering elementary and… pic.twitter.com/86yKGQN7M2
— Steve McGuire (@sfmcguire79) November 11, 2025
Mathematics serves as the backbone of modern technology and the global economy by enabling precise computation, data analysis, and problem-solving, all essential to innovation in fields such as artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, finance, and engineering. We desperately need Americans with those skills; the American education system seems incapable of producing young people educated with this essential skill.
Many freshmen arrive on campus completely unprepared for even high-school-level math. In recent years, UCSD has seen a significant increase in enrollment in Math 2 (remedial math) and Math 3B, which now cover skills from elementary through Algebra II. Alarmingly, some students have knowledge gaps in concepts taught as early as grades 1-8.
This chart documents the increasing number of students placed in remedial math (math 2 and math 3b): pic.twitter.com/ZUDLljkSZr
— Steve McGuire (@sfmcguire79) November 11, 2025
Nowadays, high school transcripts and grades do not reliably indicate readiness to attend college. Many admitted students completed calculus or statistics in high school, but cannot pass college precalculus. One driver of this deeply disturbing development is the push to get low-income students into slots that should be kept for qualified applicants.
As a major cause at UCSD in particular, they point to a significant increase in students admitted from “Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF)” schools, which are “California public schools in which more than 75 percent of the school’s total enrollment is composed of students who… pic.twitter.com/MS7nWajP0t
— Steve McGuire (@sfmcguire79) November 11, 2025
Once again, realities cannot be jettisoned simply because they do not align with social justice goals. How many exceptional young men and women were bypassed and had to seek their college educations at less prestigious campuses? Time spent in remediating others could have been spent instructing those with aptitudes to excel.
The data in this report clearly show that the move away from standardized testing has made it harder for admissions to identify unprepared students, as SAT/ACT scores were useful predictors for success in college-level math. Because the tools to assess these capabilities accurately were tossed in the rush to DEI, the system is being overloaded, and a breakdown seems inevitable.
This is a damning report of the state of admissions at UCSD.
The report makes clear that the situation is straining resources and making it difficult for the university to serve its mission and its students: pic.twitter.com/J6K9kXMje4
— Steve McGuire (@sfmcguire79) November 11, 2025
The crisis is severe because warning signs have been ignored for decades.
Jeanne Allen, founder and CEO of the Center for Education Reform, says this isn’t a new problem. She said it’s a result of decades of unaccountable schools and a broken system that fails students long before they make it to higher education.
…The report, done by the school’s Senate Administration Workgroup on Admissions, said Math 2 was created as a high school remedial class. But they found that “most students had knowledge gaps that went back much further, to middle and even elementary school.”
It also revealed that in 2024, 25% of students placed in Math 2 had a 4.0 average in high school math. This meant many students’ GPAs did not match their actual proficiency in the subject.
Allen warned the findings are the latest sign of a school system that’s been breaking down for years.
A good friend of mine noted that eliminating achievement standards in the name of equity ultimately creates a divided society. One class consists of individuals who, often through private means or personal initiative, acquire true education and critical skills. The other group is left without the foundational competencies needed for success in the modern economy.
Reducing academic expectations has undermined the development of essential reasoning, literacy, and problem-solving abilities. The consequence is diminishing opportunities for upward mobility among those not equipped to independently seek further education. This divergence will widen socioeconomic gaps, as only the privileged will possess the tools to innovate, lead, and adapt in the new workforce.
The remainder will be unprepared for the demands of today’s technology-driven marketplace. In other words, the DEI-based educational system will have created the result it was supposedly working to counter.
And from what I see, many of those in the success set will not be American.
One last note: Here is a picture of me on my first day on campus at UCSD in 1985. The students I instructed during my graduate school days usually had the skills to do basic chemistry. I imagine it is much more difficult work on today’s campus.
My first day on campus at UCSD….40 years ago. pic.twitter.com/k23PovxiVJ
— Leslie Eastman ☥ (@Mutnodjmet) November 14, 2025
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Comments
Upon retirement I began teaching math as an adjunct at two colleges. I can confirm that the decline in mathematics readiness and capability among my students is frightening.
As I’ve said before, even back in my school days mathematics instruction was horrible. Our eastern bloc refugee kids could all do math like it was nothing because they had been taught with superior methods and techniques.
Agree with MTED
Math is the foundation of science. The lack of math skills is one of the reasons that so many individuals fall victim to believing weak junk science.
Educational institutions today don’t educate, they indoctrinate.
To quote Ronald Reagan, “If you want more of something, subsidize it; if you want less of something, tax it.”
Detailed posts, such as this one by Ms. Eastman, underscores my frequent demand: DEFUND the UNIVERSITIES.
“Jeanne Allen, founder and CEO of the Center for Education Reform, says this isn’t a new problem. She said it’s a result of decades of unaccountable schools and a broken system that fails students long before they make it to higher education.”
Why should American taxpayers be forced to subsidize what can only be described as deliberate dysfunction?
Vivek Ramaswamy recently got ratio’d on social media for trashing American education as inadequate for 1st rate competition in the global marketplace, particularly for STEM fields.
Posts, like Ms. Eastman’s, demonstrate Ramaswamy isn’t wrong. It’s a national disgrace, and if you want more of it keep subsidizing it. The teachers unions thank you.
But more importantly, it’s a national security issue when the USA imports thousands of H1B visa holders from China or India whose national or ethnic allegiance might be – shall we say – perverted for the benefit of their home countries in order to undermine the USA.
If you want more of this keep subsidizing it. I say DEFUND the UNIVERSITIES.
Teachers cannot teach what they don’t know. People who go into teaching to be social justice warriors don’t care about little things like math, science and history. You know, factual stuff.
Isn’t math racist? Read that somewhere…
Yes indeed can’t give non-white students less than B- in math. Don’t want to be raaaaaacist.
There should be zero remedial classes at any Univ which is at all selective in admissions. For a lower tier State Univ that takes any applicant with a HS Diploma/GED and sufficient funds to pay then maybe. JUCO? Sure. All costs of any remedial classes should be borne by the School District they graduated from. In the interest of transparency the identity, the number and the % of students from School District requiring remedial classes should be prominently and clearly published. A District can brag that 95% graduate HS with 70% accepted to College but they should also be required to list the #/% of those who showed up to College unprepared to perform College level academic work.
I’ve said this for decades. Don’t provide remedial courses at the college level. Send students back to their school system; make the school system solve the problem of ignorance. This would require teachers who know Honest history, science and yes, elementary arithmetic.
jeanne is wrong:
“and a broken system that fails students”
by the “system” she means the government
ill prepared or
‘ill” dna
take your pick
then the added insult of funding institutions that are and have been dedicated to anything but brain power,,, for decades
and you know why these HB-1 etc programs are needed
NOT (just) b/c the immigrants might/will take lower pay
but b/c Americans cant do the job
In the same manner that lefty says: you people ( men/whites) arent impregnating the people ( cant say women) enough
while the welfare state grows and the magnificent black matriarchy takes over
How about as soon as every US Citizen qualified for the job at issue has been hired and no US Citizen qualified to do the job is left unemployed only then can the Company ask for H1B visa hiring approval. This way we keep Companies honest on wages and end the ‘no American will do this job’ nonsense. Offer enough in salary (with low paid H1B off the table as an option until every qualified US Citizen applicant is hired) and US Citizens will absolutely do these jobs precisely b/c wages will rise to make the jobs appealing enough.
Why do you think liberals pitched a fit about standardized testing?
WAAAA THEY JUST TEACH TO THE TEST WAAAAA
Better than not teaching at all.
Standardized tests aren’t perfect, obviously, but they give a good ballpark for academic level.
If you test the right things, teaching to the test IS teaching the material.
I had trouble with writing in college. A high school friend also had trouble with writing at another college. He asked our high school gifted English teacher for help and she basically wrote one of his papers and received a D on it. This was in the 70s so not the train wrecks of today but still a train wreck.
On the other hand, I had math and physics down pat. Chemistry, not so much.
Interesting flipside here. I cruised through Accelerated Chemistry in college, but math was a mighty struggle. I literally cannot memorize formula, and I work slow. I can do all the math if I have them and time, but drop a test on me and I’m doomed. Thankfully, I have had exactly zero real world instances where I’ve needed to integrate or trig anything. On the other hand, my English in college was…um…poor but sufficient if given enough time to write. And it stayed that way, until about 12 years ago when I started writing for fun. Now I’ve got over two million words of G-rated stories published for the community where I write, and have several working their way to actual publication.
btw…school vouchers is NOT a true conservative mechanism
it merely keeps the power out of the hands of parents ( but doesnt seem so)
as it appears to give the parents *more* power
anytime you let other people use your money to make their lifestyle choices …..civilized society loses
This “revelation” should produce a tracking program to determine how these students progress through the university. Things like entry major vs graduation (if achieved) major, year dropped out, year disqualified, etc. As well as the usual factors to include HS issuing diploma.
Maybe the testing for math (and writing-reading) ability should appear as part of the selection/application process. Those not meeting the standard should be directed to the local community college to get remediated.
Government ‘education’ produces students who are over-credentialed and under-educated; eventually(next year?) this is going to cause social collapse.
When you look at the qualified math teachers today, you have to ask why they are teaching when their skills are so badly needed in industry? In my daughter’s high school, the baseball coach was teaching math because no qualified math teachers could be found. How many schools are facing the same issue? I suspect that many of the problems are teacher related, not student.
It all started with the Bowmar Brain in the early 70s. Teachers allowed pupils to use them instead of slide rules.
This is what happens when teachers are not allowed to fail students who refuse to perform. Pretending the problem doesn’t exist does not actually solve the problem.
One of my nieces went to a major university and was pissed because she had to take a remedial math course to pursue her career. She was very accomplished all through elementary through high school. This was 25+ years ago. This gal could master pretty much everything thrown at her – and she graduated cum laud. IBM used the expression years ago – garbage in, garbage out and it was the curriculum that failed. That is unless you view education as the same as so many endeavors where the process has become everything and the product not so much.
Corporations and individuals should put a freeze on hiring non-STEM graduates from California colleges and universities, and apply strict reviews of the academic qualifications of STEM graduates. Expand as needed for other Leftist states.
Subotai Bahadur
About three-quarters of the people I come across not only have no idea how to do basic math, they don’t even recognize that many of the activities they engage in (such as making change) even involve math. In my day only about 75% of people fell into that category.
I notice that many cashiers today struggle to count change even when the modern register tells them the amount to return. I doubt most of them could even wrap their heads around the CONCEPT of counting back change without the register telling them how much.
Here is that problem addressed by a progressive boss.
Here is that problem addressed by a conservative boss.
GPA meaningless for CA public high school nowadays. SAT has value.
I’m so old, I remember when it was a scandal that high school freshmen couldn’t read, spell, write cohesively, or do long division.
And you see how well we handled that scandal — not at all.
We just cooked the grade books and kicked the can down the road to the colleges. Same way we’ll “handle” this one.
“Here’s your diploma, kid. Try not to kill anybody.”
not accidemic grading, it’s race based