communities. Citizens without the opportunities afforded by a college degree undermine the United States‘ promise and potential. But creating consensus on the importance of college completion is difficult. We seek the help of others who share our belief that all students deserve a fair chance to get to and through college and who will work alongside us to help them earn the freedom to live their dreams. Our nation‘s children deserve nothing less. (The Promise Of College Completion: KIPP‟s Early Successes and Challenges, Knowledge Is Power Program, April 28, 2011, p. 23.) http://www.kipp.org/files/dmfile/CollegeCompletionReport.pdf
In fact, this graduation-rate crisis isn‘t apparent at all U.S. institutions of higher learning—indeed, it‘s unseen at some but concentrated at others, as this assessment in The Hechinger Report posting of Jon Marcus observed: The graduation problem isn‘t generally evident at elite colleges and universities, both private and public, whose graduation rates are comparatively high. It‘s concentrated at community colleges and lowertier public universities, which enroll most of America‘s students. Such institutions increasingly serve the fastest-growing segment of American college enrollment: low-income, nonwhite, non-native-English-speaking students who are the first in their families to go to college. Community colleges enroll much higher percentages of students who work full or part time and are considered at risk for dropping out—and who are also more likely to have children at home and have interrupted their education, in some cases for years. In addition, the vast majority arrive unprepared for college-level work, with 60 percent or more steered into remedial education, according to Thomas Bailey, director of the Community College Research Center at Teachers College, Columbia University. ‗They don‘t have money, they‘re working, they‘re the people who are least likely to afford the tuition increases,‘ says Stan Jones, president of Complete College America, a national nonprofit working to increase the number of Americans with a college degree or credential. ‗We have a lot of work to do so that we don‘t fail them.‘ (Jon Marcus, ―New efforts to raise U.S. college graduation rates,‖ The Hechinger Report, July 11, 2011.) http://hechingerreport.org/content/new-efforts-to-raise-u-s-graduationrates_5955/
Regarding remedial education, a 2010 report for the Education Commission of the States presented the following dour assessment: For many policymakers, the high percentage of college students who require at least one remedial education course in reading, writing or mathematics is a symptom of the education system‘s failure to 10