Remedial math before college will make a big difference

The Tampa Tribune had a front-page story Oct. 22 about the large number of college students who fail mandatory math classes. The numbers are alarming because the cost to students and our universities for this failure is high. There is a better way to handle this.

Most colleges and universities have "washout" classes that everyone seeking a degree must take. On many campuses it's College Algebra. It makes a lot of students lie awake at night, fearing failure.

Many of us know all to well the difficulty of classes like that. Considering that up to 60 percent of non-math majors fail at Florida International, there is a big problem.

Some people would say that apparently there are too many students who don't belong in college who are on our campuses. That's not necessarily the problem. The real issue is that remedial classes are needed before the university level.

For a variety reasons, today's students are showing up in universities without the skills to pass college-level math classes. Some students who are the first in their families to attend college sometimes are not ready for some of these classes. Math comes easily to some people, and is a frustrating foreign language to others. For those folks, more remedial work must be done to bring their level of understanding up to the university level.

Well before a student steps foot on a four-year campus, good testing should determine who needs help, and then offer classes in those area, be it English or mathematics or a foreign language. The remedial work needs to happen in a place that's more affordable to students and the public.

One of the problems is that failing, or dropping one of these classes, can affect the Bright Futures Scholarship that so many Florida students depend on for tuition assistance.

We want Florida students to succeed. That may require extra vigilance on bringing students up to college level work. We hope that's done in high school, but sometimes it's not. But that doesn't mean a hardworking student should fail. There are better ways to fix this problem.