NYC Colleges Step Closer to Remediation Cessation

Black Issues in Higher Education, Dec 23, 1999

NEW YORK -- The City University of New York has decided to bar remedial students from its four-year programs, the latest such decision by the nation's higher education officials.

On a 9-6 vote last month, the New York Board of Regents said the plan is consistent with the university's mission. The policy will be enforced in January at all 11 senior colleges except two, where it will be added over a year.

"Up to now CUNY had been locked into continuing to function at a high school level," said Candace de Russy, a trustee of the State University of New York.

"Now the board is ensuring college level standards at CUNY at last. The importance of this cannot be exaggerated, for the sake of all students and especially the high-achieving minority students."

CUNY's student body of 202,000 is about two-thirds minority, and half the students are non-native speakers of English.

Students are accepted into bachelor's degree programs but fail proficiency tests in English or math will be directed to the university's community colleges or to immersion programs to better prepare for college-level work.

Eighty-one percent of the nation's public four-year colleges offer remedial courses to students, The New York Times reported today, citing state education figures. The extent of those courses is varied.

For example, California State University, the nation's largest public university system with 23 campuses, established guidelines in 1997 to improve remedial levels by requiring students to improve math and English skills within a year or else leave the system until they could prove proficiency.

And in Georgia, regents voted in 1996 to phase out remedial programs at the university system's four-year colleges, ending in 2001.

-- The Associated Press