And a scathing report released in May by the Washington-based nonprofit Complete College America called remediation “higher education’s bridge to nowhere,” traveled by nearly 1.7 million U.S. college students, with almost four in 10 community college remedial students not completing those courses and just one in 10 graduating from those schools.
The challenges of remedial education, though, transcend curriculum, said Rebecca Goosen, dean of college preparatory at San Jacinto College in Texas and president of the National Association of Developmental Education.
For many, life challenges become all consuming, she said, from the single mother losing a reliable babysitter to the teenager who can’t afford to fix a broken-down car.
“People are trying to find the silver bullet,” Goosen said. “It’s a very complex issue…We are not going to fix, in a 16-week period, what’s been broken for years.”
In West Plains, college students also struggle to excel in a region marked by high poverty and unemployment, low cultural expectations and public schools where the quality of education varies widely, numerous students, Chancellor Drew Bennett said in interviews.
For Bennett, that means offering students what he calls the “Missouri State-West Plains Promise,” a one-time guarantee that allows students who receive a “D” or “F” grade that causes their grade-point average to sink below 2.0 to retake the same class the next semester at no cost — provided the students have no more than two class absences, submit assignments on time, and seek outside help from teachers, advisers, and tutors.
Bennett, an ex-Marine and National War College professor, reinforces that message and other important university missives by reaching students where they congregate, which includes reminders and motivational tips posted in a weekly restroom newsletter known as the “Stall Study.”
Yet for all of the schools’ efforts — its innovations have attracted acclaim from the Aspen Institute as one of the country’s top 30 community colleges — the hurdles its student face outside the classroom can appear insurmountable.
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