um..... what????

[Nitt1300]

HS administrators don’t want to lose funding and want to avoid sanctions so their goal becomes failing as few students as possible. As a spouse of a HS teacher, I hear stories all the time of students who are not only failing, but never even show up for class. The last couple weeks of school is always a parade of parents calling the principal with sob stories and threats of lawsuits and students asking how they can bring their 0% for the school year up to a passing grade. The vast majority of those students and pushed through with passing grades and the teachers essentially have no say in the end.

That combined with the test optional policies of colleges is a very bad combination.

https://sfstandard.com/opinion/2026/08/15/uc-berkeley-sat-test-blind-admissions-math-scores/

I bet the Chinese aren't doing that. The future isn't so bright that we have to wear shades.

 

[BobPSU92]

I bet the Chinese aren't doing that. The future isn't so bright that we have to wear shades.

Except in Happy Valley:

 

[Lion84]

SAT range of accepted students at UMich: 1360-1530
SAT range of accepted students at UMD: 1390-1530

SAT range of accepted students at PSU: 1200-1400

So now they are Maryland Men not Michigan Men.

 

[LionJim]

So now they are Maryland Men not Michigan Men.

Dang, the cat’s now out of the bag.

 

[rigi19041]

I bet the Chinese aren't doing that. The future isn't so bright that we have to wear shades.

The left is more I terested in diversity than success.

 

[SkiSkiSki]

This is why I believe this is the participation trophy generation coming home to roost. There's been an entire generation of kids raised to believe that as long as they just show up they're good. no need to work hard. And in turn they've been fed that line of garbage through school and eventually into life. These are the kids that think they can get a degree in anything they want, regardless of ROI, and if they don't find they job they THINK they are entitled, they just move back in with mom and dad.

sad sad times

good times have made soft men, and now soft men are making hard times.

I recently overheard a phone conversation between my spouse and her adult daughter who is about 30 years old and whom I didn't know until after she graduated college. Stepdaughter, "I think parents should be responsible for their children while they are alive. Kids didn't ask to be born."

Mind you this stepdaughter and her spouse were both DINKs making somewhere in the neighborhood of $150,000 each until said stepdaughter took a mental health break and then agreed to take a severance package shortly after returning to work and receiving a less than stellar performance review.

I weep for the future of America.

 

[SkiSkiSki]

I took Astronomy and the professor said to the class, for those that think this is going to be easy think again. So definitely not pass or fail in that class.

Did anyone say, "Nah, I am really good at astrology."?

 

[BobPSU92]

So now they are Maryland Men not Michigan Men.

Penn State Men meh

 

[laKavosiey-st lion]

I recently overheard a phone conversation between my spouse and her adult daughter who is about 30 years old and whom I didn't know until after she graduated college. Stepdaughter, "I think parents should be responsible for their children while they are alive. Kids didn't ask to be born."

Mind you this stepdaughter and her spouse were both DINKs making somewhere in the neighborhood of $150,000 each until said stepdaughter took a mental health break and then agreed to take a severance package shortly after returning to work and receiving a less than stellar performance review.

I weep for the future of America.

my friend matt walsh weeps with you (us)

 

[SkiSkiSki]

I teach calculus at Berkeley. Some of my students can’t do middle school math

"Before 2020, Berkeley administered a diagnostic exam to incoming Calculus I students. Between 2018 and 2020, 71% of roughly 2,200 students tested as ready or nearly ready for calculus. At the bottom of the distribution there was almost nobody. Just 0.14% tested below basic algebra.

After UC adopted test-blind admissions, the picture changed dramatically."

Berkeley Calculus I readiness, before and after test-blind admissions​

 

[OUIrPSU]

Everyone's "lived experience" (Isn't that one of the most dangerous of all the made up buzzwords of the last decade?) is unique of course. So I can only assume that your's are what they are.

But they are certainly not of much similarity to the nationwide actual facts.

"Shocking percentage of college freshman can’t do remedial math, ‘disturbing’ new report finds
“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,’” Fox News reported. “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 argues that the COVID-19 pandemic may have had a significant impact on children’s education, but it isn’t solely at fault for this situation.

“A lot of the report that we just saw talks about concerns of the pandemic, which, yes, we haven’t caught up,” she said. “But it’s been worse for a 20-year trend. Again, it’s a generational issue.”


In any event, whether here at PSU, or at many institutions around the nation, it doesn't take a lot of work to even simply look at the number of classes/credit hours being expended on remedial level courses each semester (folks should take a stroll through the PSU Registrar's course selection website each semester

I won't even get into the results - the differential results - on things like graduation rates for kids who come in needing remedial high-school level courses, vs those who do not.
That data is all out there.

But the data you don't hear much about is how these remedial level courses are ATM machines for universities - cheap to run, and bring in the same amount of tuition $ of an advanced course with high cost.
There is a reason that most universities don't really care. And that is a big one.


And this phenomenon - listed in the report above wrt High Schools (read it again if you didn't the first time):
“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"
Is now the same song-and-dance (give them a good grade and pass them along) is taking place not onlyu in K-12, but to varying degrees at UNIVERSITIES (all the way up to graduation.... what used to be referred to as "diploma mills", but now is called "revenue and enrollment management" )- something which should logically surprise no one. And there is no incentive - in fact there is DIS-incentive for Higher Education Inc. to care.

There are still, certainly, many many bright young kids growing and advancing their intellectual capabilities at universities across the country. No doubt. And not every "pocket" of higher education (or K-12 education) is the same. But it is a huge, strong, and (now) very long-lived trend in the wrong direction.

Turning that around will take informed, honest, and reasoned actions from many different players - too long a list, with too many responsibilities, to outline here.
Right now, there is not a whole lot of reason for optimism that is going to happen soon - and, of course, the self-preservation, self-interest, and financial interests of so many are NOT congruent with actually solving the problem. And, in fact - as pointed out above - there remains significant self-interests in maintaining the status quo (which kind of shows just how F-ed the system is at present).

https://wapo.st/4wJySYy