Welcome to college. Can’t even do middle school math? No problem . . . sign up here for your $100,000 student loan to take remedial courses.

Photo above - no, this is NOT a parking garage for Cybertrucks. It's the library at the University of California, San Diego. But there's not much room for books, is there?

The original article titled “The College Students Who Can’t do Elementary Math” is still behind the Wall Street Journal's paywall. Hence, the link to Fox News (below). 10% of entering freshmen at the University of California can’t do basic math. They were admitted anyway and are now taking - and paying tuition for - remedial math. (What change should you give back from $20 for something that costs $18.99?)

There are a lot of different directions we can go with this. Are 10% of the nation’s $2 trillion in student loans because public schools are incompetent, and lie about their high school diplomas? That SAT college admission scores are also worthless? That a college diploma itself is becoming pointless in the job marketplace? That we won’t need math anyway, because of spreadsheets? And we won’t need to write anything, because of ChatGPT? Maybe this death spiral is nothing to worry about.

California has one the worst public school systems in the nation. Ranked 40th. (see link below). Despite spending $18,000 a year per public school student. That’s actually MORE than the $15,000 annual tuition at UC San Diego, where so many freshmen can’t add or subtract. Of course, your tuition is “free” if you get a scholarship or meet some sort of hardship/historically disadvantaged test.

Please do not snark that this is a problem of California’s own making. The same thing is certainly happening in NYC, Washington DC, Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Baltimore, and Biloxi Mississippi.

There aren’t enough jobs being created in America for people who lack basic math and language skills. Starbucks barristas, McDonalds french fry cooks, and Amazon pickers are all endangered species.

If we refuse to fix our public-school crisis, then we should prepare for a lifetime of UBI for kids who play videogames and smoke pot all day. Those are possibly our only choices.

I’m just sayin’ . . .

UC San Diego finds remedial math needs up 30-fold since 2020 | Fox News

States Ranked by Education - 2023 Rankings | Scholaroo

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Avectoijesuismoi · 36-40

Personally I think it is the lowering of standards across the educational system.
Firstly the teachers themselves are not of the best quality anymore as the standard required to become a teacher have dropped.
Secondly behaviour in schools has dropped as teachers lack the ability to be able to discipline for bad behaviour, which in turn means less people actually want to be or wish to stay in the profession.
Thirdly students are pushed through the system and the standard to progress to the next year have been lowered because it is now not correct to fail a student anymore and make them repeat the year, or for the school to turn around and say that it your child is not good enough to do the final two years at school as they don't have the ability to learn academically beyond this point.
And it is nonsense that everyone should go on to higher education regardless of whether they are capable of doing it or not.
Taking 18.99 from $ 20 is basic arithmetic it is not maths and should not even require more that a moment's thought to achieve $ 1.01 as the answer.

ArishMell · 70-79, M

@Avectoijesuismoi Not sure which country you live in but we do hear things like that in the UK, and no-one seems able to say either definitely whether teaching standards have fallen or subjects have been simplified, which may amount to the same thing.

Tony Blair's Labour government back in the 1980s-90s had this notion that we had to have a "knowledge economy" whatever that meant, and implying being skilled is not having "knowledge". They also believed at least half of school leavers should go to university, but I don't recall them ever saying why, or asking what all these young people might study, and for what careers. It led to a phase of absurdities like Degrees in Golf Course Management, although I think the reports of such things were probably very exaggerated.

What undeniably did suffer was any sort of practical education, though.

There was a feeling all that anyone in future will ever need do is sit a computer all day long, working in so-called "service industries" (mainly, money trading and its supporting IT trade). I wonder if this created an idea that no-one needs be educated properly. It would help to be numerate though!

The Covid pandemic may have revived this with so much stress on "working at home", pushed by columnists who only ever work at a computer.

Avectoijesuismoi · 36-40

@ArishMell I am originally from Bickley near Bromley and grew up in a working class home.
My parents had 4 daughters.
But all of us girls got on with life and got good education up to A levels my youngest sister being the most fortunate I was by the time she finished in a position where I could find her university to become a vet.
As for myself I just used my brains to become a fixer/free broker.
Now I reside in the covenant in Rancho Santa Fe California.

The only person in life that gets in your way is yourself if you want to achieve nobody can stop you doing so. But it's called getting off your backside and getting on with it.
If people want to use my brain now it costs 5 % of the value of the deal

If it is a billion dollar deal expect to pay 50 million into a nice user friendly destination bank account.
If you are a much maligned man that is in need of having your currency dragged back from the abyss and kept in an acceptable range I can manage it for you.
I can create entire alternative system that not only sub navigates but becomes punitive to those trying to impose measures against you and do it legally.

There are many still and have been some trading with locations where the only occupants of those places are penguins and seals.

There are many "Mutually Beneficial" arrangements.

Avectoijesuismoi · 36-40

@ArishMell As for COVID I did a bunk and went on holiday for most of it. There were plenty of places open. All you needed was access to a few basic things like private Jet, helicopter and a yacht or two.
So no stress we did take the opportunity to train up the next generation, and any of those other opportunities that were presented on a plate.
It was like they went around leaving the sweet shops unattended and left the doors ajar.
You are just asking for the kids to go in an plunder.

SusanInFlorida · 31-35, F

@Avectoijesuismoi its probably a myth that teachers were dramatically better 50 years or more ago. if you have a chance, watch the film "peyton place" which has a side plot about promotions at the local high school.

i think todays problems are mostly driven by "social promotions". if they held back every kid who was flunking, then the number of kids in school would increase dramatically. and with it the expense.

taxpayers and teachers have a shared interest in getting the losers thru the system with as little delay and drama as possible.

but the losers shouldn't be getting scholarships to college simply because they are "historically disadvantaged" or from single parent households.

jackjjackson · M

There were more two parent households 50 years go with stay at home Moms. The parents struck the fear of God into their kids and kept them on the straight and narrow. @SusanInFlorida

Avectoijesuismoi · 36-40

@SusanInFlorida I have seen the movie.
What I was saying was back when I was at school your parents were told around the age of 16 that you were incapable of doing the last two years of high school out you went and you found a job wherever they would employ you. The class I was in diminished from I think it was 30 to 14 of us that were allowed to stay on and complete our A levels which is the final two years and even then we did mocks and those they felt wouldn't pass the exams were told to leave and go find a job that if memory serves me correctly took it down to 9.
You did not get anywhere near higher education university level unless you a had the grades and the money to pay for it, got a bursary or took the student loan which you had to payback.

So if they are flunking Chuck them out and they can get on the best way they can in the real world no benefits at tax payers expense.

The major problem in the world is that they think it is somebody else's responsibility to keep them. The number is growing by the year
there are simply too many of them and insufficient number of people like yourself who are willing to work for their living and take responsibility for themselves.
I am not including people in this that genuinely have a valid reason for not being able to go out and earn a living, but I am not going to support people that think they can sit about playing video games, watching sports or Netflix etc, my advice to them is you are not my responsibility either get off your backside and go get yourself a job or you can sit there and die if starvation after which we will just cremate and dispose of you.
I didn't come from a wealthy background I came from a very ordinary working class home. But I got on with life and made myself a niche market of being a fixer)free broker.
I now reside when I am at home in the covenant part of Rancho Santa Fe California