Many freshmen aren’t academically prepared for college.
Nearly 60 percent of first-year college students discover that despite being accepted into college, they must take remedial classes in order to catch up, according to the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education.5 This readiness gap is smaller at the most selective colleges and largest at community colleges. “Lack of readiness for college is a major culprit in low graduation rates,” the center reports, “as the majority of students who begin in remedial courses never complete their college degrees.”