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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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