A new report from a group promoting high-school reform estimates that community colleges spend at least $1.4-billion a year teaching remedial courses to recent high-school graduates.
The report, “Paying Double: Inadequate High Schools and Community College Remediation,” was issued this week by the Alliance for Excellent Education. It cites weak high-school curricula, vague standards, and a lack of alignment between high-school content and the expectations of colleges and employers as the main factors driving the need for remediation.
The cost of teaching remedial mathematics and English at colleges has been a growing concern to policy makers, including the federal Commission on the Future of Higher Education, which just issued its final draft report, and some higher-education officials (The Chronicle, February 23, 2005, and June 27, 2006).
However, the $1.4-billion price tag is quite a rough estimate. In calculating the cost of remediation, the alliance used a College Board formula meant to estimate the cost of the average college course. But, in many cases, remedial courses are much less expensive than regular classes because they are less-complicated to develop and are often taught by adjuncts.
The alliance’s state-specific cost estimates also differ from those made by some states themselves. For example, the alliance estimates that Ohio spends about $69-million a year on remediation at community colleges. Ohio has calculated that it spends about $29-million a year on remediation for students at both two-year and four-year institutions (The Chronicle, February 3).
