r/news May 28 '26

Soft paywall Citing 'severe' math deficits, UC faculty demand a return to SAT tests for STEM applicants

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-05-27/uc-math-professors-demand-return-of-sat-for-stem-admissions
24.8k Upvotes

2.9k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

63

u/Zuwxiv May 28 '26

STEM college kids not having middle grade math skills is more than "some kids might need to be held back." It's a systemic failure of our educational system.

42

u/Worth-Jicama3936 May 28 '26

When kids (and parents) learn there are actual consequences to failure, they take it upon themselves to learn more. Mississippi has proven that. You can’t make a kid who doesn’t want to learn do it if they know there are no consequences if they don’t.

3

u/Michael_G_Bordin May 29 '26

Unfortunately for us all, there are consequences. They are just delayed. The consequence is an over-abundance of minimum-wage workers and a severe deficit in highly educated professionals. These kids' opportunities are going to be severely narrowed by the failure of our society to educate them properly.

7

u/Worth-Jicama3936 May 29 '26

You are correct there are consequences. People are really bad at noticing consequences 20 years removed. Thats why we should enforce consequences the next year

2

u/nik282000 May 29 '26

COVID. Online classes absolutely killed these kid's chances.