A debate is brewing over whether remedial classes make sense or not at the college level.

http://chronicle.com/article/Remedial-Educators-Warn-of/231937/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

Every college has them: math skills labs; remedial reading; pre-comp comp courses.  Even law schools have them.  And they have had them for a very long time.  For instance, when I taught in the Widener Law School 20 years ago, the student body was second only to Georgetown Law in its size.  The faculty called on the university's president to cut off the bottom tier of students being admitted.  His response, the law school being Widener's most productive cash cow, was that more remedial support would be provided but the incoming classes wasn't going to be shrunk.

Parents typically hate these remedial courses because usually they don't fulfill any graduation requirements and often they don't even count toward the magic 120 credits required to graduation  Money wasted is what they frequently think.  Students, who now usually take placement tests on line, may very well cheat in order to place out of such remedial rabbit holes.  That tells you what they think about them.

So what's the answer?  Remedial courses, as the trade's national association argues?  Or tutoring and other such support for students floundering in regular classes?  Or some combination of both, as most institutions support now?

That's what the debate is all about.