While four-year universities just seem to get more expensive and exclusive, community colleges make higher education accessible and affordable. But community colleges are not fulfilling their mission for all students, especially Black and Latinx students. This is happening statewide, including right here in the Bay Area.
A law was passed in 2017 (AB 705) that gave students the right to take transferable, college-level English and math classes without being sidetracked into remedial classes. But 97% of community colleges in the state keep enrolling students in remedial classes that repeat high school math. At CCSF and most other colleges around the Bay, course schedules are still packed with remedial math, and colleges are still presenting — or should I say misrepresenting — remedial classes as a good option for students.
Students pay for remedial classes, but the credits don’t transfer to a university, sending us into a spiral of wasted time and money. Only 14% of students who start in remedial math go on to pass a transferable course within a year, compared to 60% of students who start in a transferable course. For students from low-income communities, this can be the thing that makes or breaks their ability to take care of themselves or their families. And the ones impacted most are Black and Latinx — over 375,000 Black and Latinx students attend colleges where remedial math still makes up over 30% of the introductory sections offered.
Besides disrupting our educational progress, remedial classes can also damage students’ confidence and mental health. To be disproportionately funneled into remedial classes by college counselors serves to perpetuate pervasive racial stereotypes about people of color and says to us as students, “You cannot succeed in a challenging class.”
The good news is that it doesn’t have to be this way. There is a lot of evidence that students have higher success if they enroll in college-level, transferable courses and are provided with support. We just need the leaders of community colleges to see this, believe it and act on it.
With Students Making a Change, I’ve gotten involved in pushing for full, equitable implementation of AB 705, and I hope other students will join in this effort. It’s absolutely critical that students are at the table when considering policies that directly and profoundly affect us.
If you’re a community college student, find out if your institution is still offering remedial courses and advocate for them to be replaced with added support for students in transfer-level classes. This includes changes such as offering embedded tutors and additional time with the instructor.
And if you’re being pushed to repeat a class you took in high school, or you’re nervous about taking transfer-level math, think twice before enrolling in a remedial class. Instead, take a section with extra support and use the tutoring center. If your college doesn’t offer support like this, consider taking transfer-level math at a different community college. Your belief in yourself and knowledge of your rights are vital in navigating a bureaucratic system.
Bottom line, don’t let anyone convince you that you can’t succeed in transfer-level courses. Students deserve the right to try, the right to get support in these classes, and the right to attend an institution that has confidence in our success. Advocate for yourself, because remedial classes do not give you credits toward your goals and can waste your valuable resources, making it harder for you to succeed on your terms.
Trillia Hargrove is a student at City College of San Francisco studying psychology.
