Underprepared Students

Measuring Up 2000: The State-by-State Report Card for Higher Education

UNDERPREPARED STUDENTS
By Robert McCabe

As we begin the 21st century, information technology is transforming the world at a breathtaking pace. Our future economy will be built on information-based industries that need a broadly based, highly skilled workforce. Eighty percent of new jobs will require some postsecondary education but, unfortunately, only 42% of today's students leave high school with the necessary skills to begin college-level work. America's greatest strength is its commitment to the value and importance of every individual; the nation benefits when everyone's talents are fully developed.

More than ever, our future depends on advances in education. Public school performance must be dramatically improved so that more students graduate from high school with college-entry skills. America's changing demography, however, threatens to overwhelm an already strained education system. In the coming years, schools will enroll more children from poor, educationally disadvantaged families and from homes in which English is not the primary language.

With high expectations, state school reforms are aggressively addressing educational problems. To date, however, they are having limited success. Of particular concern is the fact that the schools have been unable to help large numbers of African American and Hispanic students from falling behind. The schools must do more to ensure that students of all ethnicities develop their academic skills.

Photo Credit: Murnor Studio

Robert McCabe is a Senior Fellow at the League for Innovation in the Community College and President Emeritus of Miami-Dade Community College. He is a founding board member of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education.

Even with aggressive school reforms in place in many states, every year over one million academically underprepared students enter higher education and are in need of developmental, or remedial, education services. These services yield important benefits. Each year, with an expenditure of only one percent of higher education budgets, more than half a million college students successfully complete remediation, and after remediation they do as well in standard college courses as those students who begin fully prepared. While only one in six earns a bachelor's degree, one-third earn an occupational associate degree or certificate. Others go directly into the workforce, and most are employed in technical or office careers. Providing effective developmental programs that give underprepared students the opportunity to qualify for good jobs is an essential mission for American higher education.

Measuring Up 2000 provides the states with a valuable overview of the status of higher education. The picture, however, is incomplete because it does not address the effectiveness of programs for underprepared students. These important programs are often given a low priority and inadequate support. Unfortunately, state-level data on the performance of underprepared students are not available for this edition of Measuring Up. If we are to have a complete understanding of how well higher education serves the needs of American society, the states must collect data on their postsecondary developmental education programs.

In the coming decades, the role of higher education in teaching students who enter with academic deficiencies will expand and become increasingly important. The workplace of tomorrow will be quite different from today–the result of both revolutionary and evolutionary changes. Revolutionary changes will occur, as new jobs will require markedly different and higher competencies. Existing jobs will continue to evolve, requiring different behaviors and job skills from those employees now possess. Simple jobs will become "high-performance" jobs that will require workers to have the ability to reason through complex processes rather than follow rote instructions or complete the discrete steps of larger processes. These workers will need higher-order information skills as a foundation for lifelong learning.

In the global economy, business and industry will set up operations wherever the costs are lowest. Manufacturing is already moving from the United States to countries with lower wages. This trend is expected to continue. Sustaining America's future will depend on innovations in the knowledge industries and on developing a more productive workforce. Brainpower and technology can multiply individual productivity to compensate for higher wages and help America retain global competitiveness. The countries that remain competitive in the 21st century will be those with the highest overall literacy and educational levels and those with a strong "bottom third" of its population, such as Germany and Japan. We are a long way from developing the broad base of highly skilled workers that is needed in the information age.

Demographic changes are also having a dramatic impact on our society. The American population is becoming older. The members of the baby-boom generation—the 76 million people born between the end of World War II and 1964—are approaching their late 50s. Today there are 35 million Americans age 65 and older; by 2030 there will be more than 69 million in that age group. About 160 million Americans are now in their prime work years, and that number is expected to remain constant through 2030. But if the economy is to remain strong as the population grays, the productivity of working-age adults must improve in order to support the aging population.

America's population is also becoming more ethnically diverse. For example, in 1970 roughly 9 million Americans were of Hispanic origin (about 4% of the population); today there are 30 million Hispanic Americans (11% of the population); by 2005 there will be more than 36 million; and by 2050 Hispanic Americans will constitute almost one-quarter of the population. This growth reflects both the birthrates of Hispanic American women (which are higher than those of non-Hispanic American women) as well as immigration from Latin America and the Caribbean. Most of these immigrants, who account for more than half of all immigrants to the United States, arrive with limited academic skills.

Changes in family life are also having an effect on children: Only half of children and teenagers live in a two-parent household; more children (33% in 1994 compared to 5% in 1960) are born to unmarried women; and children who are in two-parent households spend less time with their parents because, in most cases, both parents work.

Moreover, one-parent households tend to have lower incomes, and poverty is the primary cause of educational underpreparation. Children from low-income families begin their lives with many disadvantages: poor parental care, lack of early education, inadequate health care, and unstimulating household environments.

The higher levels of poverty among Hispanic American and African American households are reflected in the data on academic performance: 25% of Hispanic American teenagers and 13% of African American teenagers drop out of high school, compared to about 8% of white non-Hispanic teens. The disparities persist at higher levels of education: Hispanic Americans comprise about 14% of the 15- to 19-year-old population, but they earn only 7% of the associate degrees and 6% of the bachelor's degrees. African Americans are about 16% of the 15- to 19-year-old population, yet earn only 10% of the associate degrees and 9% of the bachelor's degrees. White non-Hispanics comprise 70% of the 15- to 19-year-old population yet earn 83% of the associate degrees and 86% of the bachelor's degrees. Hispanic Americans and African Americans lose ground at each step of the educational ladder, from high school graduation and college enrollment to degrees and certificates earned.

To summarize, Americans must develop high information skills and become increasingly productive in order to keep our industries globally competitive, to offset lower wages in some other countries and to support an aging population. In the years to come, a larger percentage of Americans will go on to college (not necessarily to complete a four-year degree), and more of these young people will begin college with poor preparation and academic deficiencies. Colleges will have the responsibility of raising educational attainment for this more diverse and less prepared student population.

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.	"Each year more than half a million college students successfully complete remediation, and after remediation they do as well in standard college courses as those students who begin fully prepared."	.
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Because America needs all of its citizens prepared for the information-rich environment of the 21st century, access to higher education must be a pillar of educational policy. In order to be successful, students must be adequately prepared for the college classes in which they enroll. Students who have academic deficiencies must receive remedial help before they begin standard college courses. Our college and university programs, if they are to maintain their quality, must offer effective developmental education. Access and developmental education are inseparable.