College needs a reckoning: Here’s who paid for COVID and DEI failure

Published July 21, 2026 9:00am ET



With the announcement in June by Columbia University that it would once again require SAT or ACT scores as part of the undergraduate application process, the failed experiment of “test-optional” admissions at Ivy League schools and beyond has finally come to an end. Columbia was the last holdout among the “elite” institutions of higher education.

Over 1,000 STEM professors across the University of California system recently submitted a petition pleading for the reinstatement of SAT and ACT tests. Professors cited a lack of preparedness of incoming students and their inability to teach at a high level, due to an incoming student population that required remedial instruction.

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