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At least 1.7 million college students in our country are sent to remedial classes every year to enable them to catch up with the regular course. Remedial classes however are very expensive eating up the student’s finances and time. More often than not, these classes only discourage students from pursuing their degrees.

These courses are equally priced as the regular classes but are not geared towards fulfilling their requirement for a degree, say one of the latest research studies by a non-profit based in Washington called Complete College America.

At a period when student loan issue has boomeranged on a large scale, remedial classes are definitely failing our system of higher education says this group. There is a significant effort towards fixing this as a couple of lawmakers have already pushed for changes and course redesign. The report also says that at least one year of remedial was put in by twenty per cent of students entering four year universities and fifty per cent of students planning to do two year colleges.

Cost of college, as we know, is constantly on the rise. There is an eight per cent increase in the average four year public college in-state tuition fee. Students taking a full credit loan must pay a whopping $8000 a year.

In Kansas, legislation was passed recently that says state funds cannot be used for remedial courses. According to a Johnson County Community College remedial writing English professor Beth Gulley, though the statistics are dismal, there is still hope.

New York based Columbia University’s Community College Research Center senior researcher Davis Jenkins feels it would be better to examine student’s high school transcripts rather than depend on the placement exams that do not do a proper job of identifying students who require remedial.

Math classes are being redesigned focusing on a few important areas and classes are increasingly being customized. Remedial math classes for students of psychology, law or history for example, will now focus more on statistics.

The study also shows that more than fifty per cent of remedial students could do with more help from school and must certainly be placed in the right classes. They must be offered frequent class meetings and tutors. This evidently is a success model as demonstrated by certain institutions that have adopted these methods. Here, remedial students are as successful as the regular college ready ones.

In Connecticut, legislation was passed favouring unprepared students who are now eligible for college level courses with support. Support system include extra tutoring, extended instruction and mandatory labs.

Experts feel that if these changes are not brought about in all educational institutions, we are failing these students. Remedial program has changed the life of many. Jessica Grubb for example, is a math tutor who took math remedial five days a week. For her, this program transformed her life and gave her a lot of confidence. She says that the remedial gave her a second chance and a new lease of confidence.