It’s a tough lesson for millions of students just now arriving on campus: Even if you have a high school diploma, you may not be ready for college.
In fact, a new study calculates, one-third of American college students have to enroll in remedial classes.
The bill to colleges and taxpayers for trying to bring them up to speed on material that they were supposed to learn in high school comes to between $2.3 billion and $2.9 billion annually.
Discussion Starters
1.) Students mature at varying rates due to a wide range of factors. Among your students who soon will be entering college soon, what percentage do you perceive as being unprepared for this next phase of their lives? In what way (or ways): emotionally, spiritually, academically, other?
2.) Of those you perceive as being unprepared, what is their perception? If their perception differs, why, and on what grounds do they think otherwise?
3.) What are you doing to help prepare them? How are your efforts working, and in what area(s) could you improve? On whose support are you relying?
