32 Open Admissions plus no willingness equals disaster

I graduated a senor college that embraced the philosophy of open admission. Unlike other colleges that long had the policy, the students were not flunked out after one or two semesters. Many state universities have had the policy of admitting anyone for the past hundred years. They maintained standards and flunked out the students that could not meet them. The students had the opportunity of going onward and upward but they had to meet standards. Those that could not pass after one or two terms got the message to do something else.

The college I graduated embrace d the philosophy that the college could change the student into a better person. This theory might have worked if adequate tutoring and remediation was provided from the get go but instead the students changed the colleges to a lesser level. The students went on strike to demand credit for their remediation courses –stuff they were suppose to know from their high school classes. Absenteeism, lateness, inability to study or to read became characteristic of these colleges. Instead of the college diploma guaranteeing the student knew something; it just became another worthless high school diploma.

Standards were so low that one of our newspapers complained something was wrong when over half the students were on the honor role but still could not graduate because they could not pass the exit competency tests. One senior college solved the problem that students could not pass competency tests to take non-remediation courses by lowering the passing standards. It made the students happy but they still couldn’t do passing work.

There is a place for remediation and tutorial assistance but the students have to be willing to embrace this.