[Gefreiter]

When I was a grad student I was a TA for an intro course. Students had to produce an essay on the week's reading and turn it in on Fridays.

As usual, some students did better than others right out of the box. One in particular though, a black student, had atrocious writing. It was barely even coherent. I had him pegged for an ESL kid. He never spoke in class, so never heard an accent.

Anyway, every week I'd write on his essay to come and see me during office hours. After weeks of asking, he finally did. And guess what? He wasn't ESL at all. He was from Queens. And he was entirely unprepared for university study.

I don't know how this younng man got through school. He could hardly even spell. His teachers utterly failed him at some point, but then he was admitted to a respectable state university.

[Stashiu]

In the early/mid 70's and was an undergrad TA and a graduate assistant. As an undergrad TA, I was supporting an intro Sociology course. Had one student who could barely read. He had been enrolled via a 'special program'. That's when I figured out that these 'special programs' helped the university's enrollment stats look better.

As a graduate assistant, I ran into a similar thing with the football team. The "gentleman's agreement" was that the team would enroll in the class to pump up the numbers for the department, and we were to make sure that they 'passed'.

Anyway, a college enrollment official I know (black female, Ph.D.), says that a HS diploma awarded before 1975 is the equivalent to a Bachelor's degree now. Public Schools have been dumbed down to 'get the numbers to look right", is the way she puts it. College degree programs have had to adjust. Once again, they need enrollments to get the money.