What Universities Are Doing About the Math Preparation Decline
Incoming first-year students at US universities have shown declining math preparation over the past five years. The institutional responses vary substantially in effectiveness.
For many years, faculty in university mathematics departments have reported that incoming first-year students are not well prepared for university study of mathematics. A new analysis, The 2025 Report by the Mathematical Association of America, contains data for 24 universities, and looks at data for the five year period 2015-2019. The data shows that the average of the five year normalized average placement scores for these 24 universities has declined by 8% on average. This decline in preparation of students for study of mathematics in universities has many negative effects. Not only do large percentages of students fail the introductory mathematics courses, but the failure of these courses has very negative effects on students, and causes very large numbers of students to leave STEM majors.
The Specific Skills Gap
We’ve explored the Specific Skills Gap that afflicts a growing number of entering first-year university students, who possess poor preparation in a variety of specific math skills. While there has been a slight decline in Algebra skills and a greater decline in Geometric reasoning skills, the largest decline of all Specific Skills in Measurement and Trigonometry skills.
The Pandemic Effect
Of course, the pandemic accelerated the decline in preparation, for the simple reason that for two years high school math was in disarray, and so universities are receiving as freshmen students with significant gaps in their preparation, a cohort effect that is slowly disappearing as each new freshman class enters the university as well prepared as their pre-pandemic counterparts.
What Universities Are Trying
Three measures are in use to deal with these problems. Summer math bridge programs with one- to four-week preparation for first- year students before the regular semester begin have produced good results for universities that invested seriously in such programs. Study sessions, run by trained peer leaders in addition to a corresponding regular course, as a rule (but not always) bring better results than the corresponding course alone. Extending the typical one-semester calculus course to a full year (to give students more time to become familiar with the basic mathematical structures that are at the heart of every science has also, for some universities, brought satisfactory results. Test it.
The Summer Bridge Programs
There are many university programs that have tried to help bridge the gap in their students’ preparation for university mathematics. As an example, many universities offer summer bridge programs for new freshmen and transfer students. These programs bring new students to campus for two to four weeks before the start of the fall semester. Students in these programs can take review courses, get one on one help from a tutor, work in a study group with other students, and participate in a variety of other activities before the semester starts. Students who participate in a good summer bridge program typically do very well in their math and science courses in the fall. My sense is that these programs are worth the investment for universities that have students with large numbers of students who need help with preparation for calculus and other math and science courses for new freshmen and transfer students.
The Supplemental Instruction Question
Institutional intervention through Supplemental Instruction (SI) to study groups is an evidence-based practice that, over decades, has demonstrated that students who attend regularly have significantly better outcomes in specific courses than their peers who do not attend SI sessions. As an intervention with very low cost compared to other practices and the potential for large return on investment, the question remains, however, whether the SI model can be made to work well in the long run.
The Curriculum Reform Question
Some universities have revised their introductory math curricula to address the uneven preparedness of new university students. Quantitative reasoning for life in the 21st century type of classes for example offer more prepared students for university life by focusing on the use of quantitative methods to arrive at a solution as opposed to the traditional focus on learning to manipulate symbols in order to solve a mathematical problem that many high school precalculus and calculus students are not prepared to do. In addition there are Mathematics for Life Sciences (MLS) type of sequences that are designed to prepare life science majors for the mathematics that they will need in order to complete their major.
What Students Should Consider
Those that enter universities with math requirements in place can learn from our research. Take your placement tests seriously. Pay close attention to the recommendations made based on your scores. Get into a summer bridge program, if your university offers one. Take advantage of supplemental instruction for your math classes. Go to the sessions from the very first day of class.
The K-12 Implications
This university problem has implications for K-12 education. K-12 systems can provide the skills that universities depend on for preparation of their students. States and districts invest in algebra and geometry for all students in all grades. These students enter university life with strong math preparation, while students from other states and districts, where the K-12 system has focused on other topics, enter with much weaker preparation.
A twenty year veteran of the world of math prep at the University level once shared this with me in a conversation, and it remains the cheapest lesson I have ever had.
The Broader Picture
Finally, there is more to the math preparation question than preparing students for college. It is a K-12/higer education issue and the two systems are in very different stages of development. The preparation that a university requires a student to have was learned in K-12. Therefore, the preparation that a university is prepared to provide a student is that which that student learned in K-12. The university can provide remedial work but that is a different matter from the student having been prepared in the first place where preparation ideally occurs.
The Self-Paced Question
Self-paced resources, (such as “Khan”) are proliferating, because traditional models have not yet been organized to be delivered to huge numbers of college students, at scale. What they are good for is students who already have metacognitive skills and are willing and able to guide themselves.
What Students Should Do Before College
For students who recognize before entering college that they are several steps behind in math preparation, it is not too late to do something about it. First, make sure that you take your placement tests honestly. Do not try to place yourself into a higher level of math than your preparation will allow. Use your summer before entering college to complete a structured review of your math skills. Take advantage of your university’s math bridge program for incoming students if such a program is available. Such work is uncomfortable, but it is far better than struggling to keep up in several introductory college courses, each semester.
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