More than half of incoming college freshmen in Nevada require remediation in math, English or both. Although the University of Nevada, Reno's numbers aren't as high, administration still faces the issue. Reno Public Radio’s Marcus Lavergne reports.
Last year, UNR placed 33 percent of its freshmen in courses with remedial content compared to 58 percent at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
Although UNR’s rate is much lower than other Nevada System of Higher Education institutions, Joe Cline, Vice Provost for undergraduate education, said there is still quite a price to pay.
“It’s costly for our institution to have to pay attention to this,” Cline said. “It’s costly for the students because these remedial courses do not count towards the requirements for a college degree, and it’s additional tuition that they have to pay. Not all forms of financial aid pay for remedial course work, so it is an expensive problem.”
UNR students who come in needing extra help have a graduation rate that's 9 percent lower than their college-ready peers. According to Cline, UNR’s best tools for helping students finish are its "stretch courses."
“They come into this co-remedial course which has regular college components then has the remedial component built in," Cline explained, "so that in their first semester at UNR they could complete a college level math course even though they didn’t directly place in a college level math course based on their test scores.”
In the past few years, UNR has seen the number of incoming students in need of remediation continuously decrease.
