Upgrading public education

The decision to raise admissions standards at state colleges and university campuses should impart new vigor to institutions that have slipped into academic mediocrity. The recent 6-1 vote by the state's Higher Education Coordinating Council represents an important shift from rhetoric to deeds.

Beginning in 1997, students applying to the University of Massachusetts will be required to have a minimum grade-point average of 2.75 in 16 college preparatory courses. Standards will be slightly lower at the state's nine public colleges. Students with lower averages can still be admitted with correspondingly higher scores on the Scholastic Assessment Test. State education officials are wisely seeking separate admission rules for UMass-Boston, where entering students are often older than traditional freshmen and are striving to overcome years of educational impediments in large urban school systems.

Several social and economic factors suggest that the state will succeed in attracting better students to its campuses. Costs at many private institutions exceed $20,000 annually; residents will embrace a state system that offers lower costs and high academic standards.

Students in the most danger of being squeezed out are those from poor areas where secondary education is marginal. These students are not served by grade inflation and similar practices at colleges. But real benefits await them at the state's 15 community colleges, where remedial help is taken seriously. Students interested in transferring to UMass and other four-year degree schools will have opportunities to do so. The fairness test for the state is its willingness to expand funding and absorb additional students at the community colleges, not lowering standards at state colleges.

Thomas Parker, a lecturer in education at Boston University, predicts a dramatic rise in self-learning and nontraditional postsecondary institutions that will allow students ``to get right to what the job market demands.'' That phenomenon, combined with excellent community colleges and higher standards at the state colleges, offers upraised hopes for higher education.

This story ran on page 10 of the Boston Globe on 01/04/96.