A Nudge Toward Academic Success

That almost 400 Cal State Northridge freshmen failed remedial classes this year can hardly be called good news. But compared to what students feared would happen under a new mandate limiting remedial classes to the first academic year, the figure looks better. Much better.

Like all the schools in the Cal State system, CSUN has been struggling with how to teach record enrollments of students unprepared to do college-level work. Of 2,300 CSUN freshmen who enrolled last fall, 80%, or about 1,800, needed remedial classes.

Would time limits on remedial courses hurt these students’ chances of getting ahead? CSUN students feared so and protested the executive order amid predictions that more freshmen would fail than pass.

That clearly did not happen. And of the 400 students who didn’t pass, 275 have been given until the end of the fall semester to do so, under leeway granted Cal State campus presidents. Only 120, or 5% of the 2,300 incoming students, were sent “stop” letters. They can try again at community colleges.

If raising the bar for enrolling freshmen pushed students to exceed their own expectations, that is good news indeed.