Florida colleges to drop remedial classes for thousands

Denise-Marie Ordway:

For years, men and women wanting to take classes at their local community colleges have been discouraged to learn they must complete a remedial program before enrolling in college-level courses.

Almost 200,000 students, including recent high-school graduates, had to take refresher classes in math, reading or writing last school year. Some needed extra help in all three subjects, adding a semester or two or more -- and hundreds of dollars in tuition -- onto their educational plans.

It's a situation that has prompted numerous students to drop out before they ever enroll in their first college-level course.

Educators and lawmakers have long agreed the system needs revamping, considering colleges statewide pay tens of millions of dollars a year for a program with dismal results. Nationally, fewer than 1 in 10 students who started in remediation graduate from community colleges within three years, according to one estimate. Recent reliable data for Florida students were not immediately available, but old figures show it's just as bad.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at June 8, 2013 12:18 AM
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