UCSD Reports Nearly 30-Fold Surge in Freshmen Lacking Middle School Math Skills

San Diego, California – The University of California San Diego (UCSD) has revealed a nearly 30-fold increase in the number of incoming freshmen whose math skills fall below a middle-school level between 2020 and 2025. A report from UCSD's Senate-Administration Working Group on Admissions indicates that by Fall 2025, approximately one in eight students in the entering cohort required remedial math education, despite often possessing high school math GPAs exceeding 3.6. This significant decline coincides with the COVID-19 pandemic, the University of California system's removal of SAT requirements, and widespread grade inflation.

The report highlighted alarming deficiencies, noting that 25% of students needing remedial math could not solve a basic equation like "7 + 2 = ___ + 6," and 61% were unable to round the number 374,518 to the nearest hundred. These are fundamental concepts typically mastered in elementary and middle school. The university has been compelled to redesign its remedial Math 2 course to cover elementary and middle school topics, with enrollment surging from 32 students in Fall 2020 to 921 in Fall 2025.

Factors contributing to this academic slide include the disruptive effects of the pandemic on K-12 education, the elimination of standardized testing, which led to a reliance on inflated high school grades, and an expansion of admissions from under-resourced high schools. While other UC campuses have observed similar, though less severe, trends, UCSD's situation is described as "significantly worse" due to its increased enrollment from schools heavily impacted by COVID-era learning loss.

Despite the stark findings, the university's immediate response, according to a tweet by Jelani Nelson, a computer science professor, was that "In the short-term, nothing will change." However, the report itself proposed several recommendations, including the development of a "Math Index" to better assess student skill levels and requiring math placement testing for incoming students. This crisis raises concerns about the preparedness of future graduates in STEM fields and the broader implications for higher education standards.