In early 2020, the University of California set the tone for the rest of the country when its regents voted to drop SAT and ACT admissions requirements through 2024. That decision, initially framed as a pandemic necessity, quickly reshaped admissions nationwide. By late 2022, roughly 1,750 schools, or about 80% of U.S. universities, had adopted test-optional policies, according to Forbes.
“It’s a sea change in terms of how admissions decisions are being made,” Robert Schaeffer, of the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, told NBC News. “The pandemic created a natural experiment.”
Five years later, the results of this “natural experiment” are in. A report released by UC San Diego in November tells the story.
“Over the past five years, UC San Diego has experienced a steep decline in the academic preparation of its entering first-year students — particularly in mathematics, but also in writing and language skills,” a new university report reads. “This trend poses serious challenges both to student success and to the university’s instructional mission.”
Those words might sound ominous, but they don’t do justice to just how bad the slide has been.
Roughly 1 in 8 UCSD freshmen are working with math skills that don’t clear the high school bar — a 30-fold jump since 2020. It gets worse, however. The report concluded that 70% of those students fall below middle school levels.
To give you an idea of what we’re talking about, a full quarter of students failed to solve the following equation: 7 + 2 = [ ] + 6.
This means that my 9-year-old son, who tests high in math, is likely more equipped mathematically than many of these college students. I say this not as a point of pride, but to emphasize the disservice done to students thrust into (very pricey) college courses.
It’s not just math, however. The report found that 40% of students deficient in arithmetic also couldn’t write (or, in the euphemistic language of the report, “required remedial writing instruction”).
The report was unflinching in its assessment.
“Admitting large numbers of students who are profoundly underprepared [for college] risks harming the very students we hope to support, by setting them up for failure,” it declares.
UC San Diego should be commended for coming forward to report a phenomenon that is undoubtedly true at universities across the country.
Many at the time warned that ditching standardized tests was a bad idea. Research shows that high school GPAs don’t tell you much about how students perform once they get to campus. Standardized test results, however, do.
So, why did universities engage in this “natural experiment”? There is no single answer, but politics, ideology, and crass incentives all played a role.
Let’s start with politics. As David Leonhardt pointed out in the New York Times, universities are run by progressives, and “standardized tests have become especially unpopular among political progressives.”
Some progressives say standardized tests cause too much stress. Others say they’re biased to explain why men score higher, on average, than women and why some racial groups perform better than others.
Ideology, a kissing cousin of politics, also plays a role. The fact that universities ditched standardized testing during the peak of the DEI craze is not a coincidence. As Leonhardt noted in the New York Times, the hostility to standardized tests is based largely “on the theory that they hurt diversity.”
This is a kooky claim for various reasons, not least because it is rooted in bigotry. But there was also a method to the madness. Abandoning standardized tests, which are rooted in objectivity, gave universities the ability to admit students on their terms. By making admission more subjective, universities were giving themselves cover for their own unlawful admissions policies.
Finally, there’s the financial incentive. It’s no secret that demand for higher education is plummeting. (This trend is partly driven by pure demographics, but high tuition and the diminishing value of college degrees also play a role.)
THE WOKE WAR ON STANDARDS IS DESTROYING HIGHER EDUCATION
As a result, universities are confronting an “enrollment cliff.” While declining numbers of new students would have posed a challenge regardless, the problem was worsened by pandemic-era learning losses caused by widespread high school closures. Removing standardized tests was a (kind of) solution to this problem. If not enough students are qualified to attend university, remove the qualifications.
In the end, ditching standardized tests will be remembered as a chapter in the broader story of the decline of U.S. universities. The decision didn’t cause the fall, but it accelerated a trend toward lower academic standards — one that harmed not just the reputation of universities, but also students who were admitted for all the wrong reasons. Sadly, they will be left paying the price.
Jon Miltimore is senior editor at the American Institute for Economic Research. Follow him on Substack.
