Louisiana’s state government is debating whether or not to allow remedial or developmental courses in four-year schools. Almost every outcome of this addition would be beneficial for the student body.
So what’s the hold up?
The one-year study on remedial college courses, conducted by the state Board of Regents, has been extended an extra one to two years. Finalizing this act should be a high priority.
Adding in remedial, also called developmental, classes would speed up the time it takes students to obtain a degree. It would give students who need extra help the support they need while keeping them on track to graduation.
Too many students have fallen behind in classes because they were ill-equipped to handle the college coursework. It’s no secret that Louisiana education is the Dory of the “Finding Nemo” crew, trailing behind other states like Ohio that offer remedial courses, which have since seen their graduation rates increase.
It’s time to correct what our students are paying for.
Sixty percent of incoming freshmen nationwide are unprepared for college in multiple subject areas, according to Hunter Boylan, director of the National Center for Developmental Education.
The logical approach would be to start at the bottom and work our way up, improving lower education to combat the need for remedial college courses in the first place.
But with state government leading the way, we are going to fight this as backward as we possibly can.
With that in mind, we are starting from the top and trying to solve the problem from there. Although puzzling, this tactic could temporarily be a quick solution to many problems college students are facing.
College is slowly becoming a five-year endeavor.
LSU’s six-year graduation rate reached a new peak in 2012 at 66.7 percent, according to the Southern Regional Education Board. That’s a positive number considering everyone that is motivated enough to stay in school and get a degree, but it shouldn’t take six years to accomplish that.
Remedial courses could help speed things up because they would aid students who would otherwise be destined to waste money on an overpriced education and an extra one or two years sitting in lecture halls.
“The less time they [students] spend in college, the better their completion rate. We need to accelerate the education process,” said Jim Purcell, state commissioner of higher education
Purcell understands that keeping students in college longer accomplishes nothing but student debt and deteriorated motivation.
Plus, the less time students spend in college, the more time we can spend as functional members of society with — hopefully — big-kid jobs. This could be a win-win on all sides of the equation.
But the issue is that universities want to keep their hard-earned, interest-ridden student loans, and they want them for as long as possible. I’d like to see the poor fellow who tries to convince those in charge of approving the remedial courses to release their grip on student wallets.
Our state is on the right track to pave an easier success route for students. I want to give a pat on the head to whoever is responsible for taking these necessary steps to improve higher education in Louisiana.
With that out of the way, we can begin tackling public education problems. But we can battle that one out when the time comes.
Annette Sommers is an 18-year-old mass communication sophomore from Dublin, Calif.