College algebra is a shockingly common stumbling block to graduation. About 50 percent of students each year fail to pass college algebra with a grade of “C” or better, according to the Mathematical Association of America. Students who drop out of college are most likely to do so during the first year, when college algebra is most commonly taken, and 26 percent of dropouts cited academic challenges as their reason for leaving.
One approach to dealing with the college algebra crisis is to double down on “remedial” algebra, non-credited courses designed to help students catch up on material they missed during K-12. But a growing coalition of educators argues for a different path: eliminating college algebra requirements altogether. At the end of January, education policy network Strong Start to Finish came out with a report recommending that colleges prescribe algebra only for majors that require calculus, and make statistics or quantitative reasoning the preferred option for other programs. These “math pathways,” reformers say, would be just as rigorous as college algebra, but far more useful. They would also remove an unnecessary obstacle to graduation.
Reformers argue that college algebra is irrelevant to most students. What used to be an important measure of workforce readiness is now almost obsolete, they say, save for the 5 percent of American workers who use calculus in their jobs. College algebra is typically a faster-paced version of the Algebra II course taken by 85 percent of high school students. It includes advanced topics such as quadratic equations, logarithms, and matrices, along with pre-calculus topics such as trigonometry. It was designed to prepare students for calculus tracks, but colleges continue to require it for students who will likely never use the skills again.
A December Gallup poll found that while 63 percent of U.S. adults overall rate math as being “very important” in their personal lives, only 37 percent of young people aged 18-24 rated it the same way. When students feel apathetic toward the math education they are receiving, they are unlikely to succeed.
The reality is that new technology and the evolving job market are all changing what it means to be “college ready” in math. “The scandal isn’t algebra illiteracy,” John Tamny writes for RealClearMarkets, “it’s that schools still teach [algebra] in the first place.”
Strong Start’s recommendation is the latest in a history of math education reforms in America. Harvard first made algebra a prerequisite in 1820, and by 1908, almost all secondary schools in the U.S. offered at least one year of algebra and geometry. The progressive education movement that followed encouraged a “less is more” approach to algebra education for most students. World War II brought a heightened need for math with military applications in the high school curriculum as incoming military officers, educated by the public school system, entered their service lacking the skills required for navigation, aeronautics, and mechanics during combat. Almost two decades later, the Soviet launch of Sputnik in 1957 accelerated the space race. Algebra, widely considered to be a precursor to calculus, was essential for training the next generation of aerospace engineers. American schools began to place greater emphasis on algebra education, supported by funding from the National Defense Education Act of 1958.
The short-lived “New Math” movement followed, which relied on highly abstract conceptions of math education adapted from French theory. Led by a think tank called the School Mathematics Study Group, funded to the tune of millions, the movement didn’t make much headway. Teachers struggled to teach the new material, and parents educated under the previous model felt alienated as they struggled to help their children with schoolwork. Time magazine called “New Math” one of the “100 worst ideas of the 20th century” in a 1999 retrospective.
The release of a 1983 report commissioned by Ronald Reagan’s secretary of education, titled “A Nation at Risk,” stoked panic over the nationwide decline in math skills amidst a newly escalated phase of the Cold War. “The educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a Nation and a people,” the report read. “What was unimaginable a generation ago has begun to occur—others are matching and surpassing our educational attainments.” Despite later criticisms of the methodology used to reach its findings, the report was a launchpad for a strong wave of reforms in math education. At the urging of lawmakers across both parties, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics developed a heightened set of standards in 1989 for the school mathematics curriculum, pointing to algebra as a key to postsecondary success.
Now, students who are not deemed “college ready” in mathematics are sent to remedial math classes, which are not credit-bearing but are nonetheless required for students to complete their degrees. A 2016 report from the National Center for Education Statistics found that more than two-thirds of community college students and 40 percent of undergraduates at four-year institutions had to take at least one remedial class in college, and that these students left without degrees at significantly higher rates than their counterparts. Senior Editor Anne Kim wrote for the Monthly in 2024 about the failings of remedial college algebra, revealing that keeping students out of credit-bearing math lowers their confidence and increases the chance that they will drop out.
Strong Start’s report addresses these changing realities of math education and its necessity for the majority of modern career paths. Their recommendation to divert college students not on the calculus track into statistics or quantitative reasoning has been implemented in several places around the country, and it’s already working.
Take Louisiana, which ranked in the bottom 10 states for K-12 public education nationwide last year. The southern state also serves more than 280,000 students in its state higher education institutions. In 2022, the growing share of incoming college students who were behind on math skills prompted state leaders to re-examine their approach to “remedial” math.
Today, Louisiana’s public colleges and universities have formally expanded math pathways to recognize that college algebra is only one of multiple gateway options that can satisfy analytical reasoning requirements. Students in social, health, and data sciences today are directed to statistics, and humanities students are directed to quantitative reasoning classes. Algebra-intensive pathways are, as Strong Start recommends, reserved for STEM and other calculus-based programs. Already, dropping remedial math has increased entry-level math course completion nearly fivefold, according to a 2024 report.
Tristan Denley, deputy commissioner for Academic Affairs and Innovation for the Louisiana Board of Regents, said results are positive for the implementation of the new pathways across two- and four-year institutions in the state.
“Our goal is to ensure that gateway mathematics is purposeful, rigorous, and aligned to students’ programs of study,” Denley said.
Kentucky has also implemented statewide college math reforms, including the elimination of no-credit courses and the expansion of offerings to include courses such as “contemporary math” for students in non-technical majors. The changes have reduced both student debt and time to graduation, according to Aaron Thompson, President of the Kentucky Council of Postsecondary Education.
“Kentucky has become a leader in improving outcomes because of policy moves like this,” Thompson said.
Louisiana, Utah, and Tennessee have now passed legislation to expand math pathways at public institutions. And, in response to the growing body of evidence from states like Louisiana and Kentucky, community colleges across the country have begun adopting alternative math pathways and corequisites to improve outcomes. A 2022 study found that community college students placed into statistics with corequisites—or supplemental courses that students take concurrently with their college-level classes—had a 50 percent higher associate degree completion rate after three years and were twice as likely to earn a bachelor’s degree within five years compared to those in traditional remedial algebra. They also achieved significantly higher annual earnings over seven years.
For most students, statistics or quantitative reasoning are more useful, applicable, and aligned with future career skills than algebra. The Charles A. Dana Center at the University of Texas, which partnered in authoring the Strong Start report, works to increase math and science literacy in K-12 and higher education. As pioneers of the “math pathways” approach, the Center has partnerships with colleges and universities in East Texas to reform college-level math education. Partner institutions saw a 116 percent increase in college-level math completion in just two years.
Afi Wiggins, the managing director of the Dana Center, said that the math students take should be relevant to success in their future careers.
“It’s not helpful for you to get your degree, and all you’ve done is gone through that algebra route, and then you come to [your employer] and you don’t understand the things that you need to understand on your day-to-day job,” Wiggins said, adding that for different institutions, with different student bodies and common career trajectories, the implementation of Strong Start’s recommendation can—and should—look different. “That’s the point of it, is making sure you are providing for the students what they need.”
In 2015, the Mathematical Association of America, the American Mathematical Association of Two-Year Colleges, the American Mathematical Society, the American Statistical Association, and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics came together to call for multiple mathematics pathways aligned with fields of study. In partnership with the Dana Center, nursing associations and task forces are also pushing to identify new math pathways that will better serve nursing students.
Pivoting from algebra to statistics or quantitative reasoning as a more common core requirement has the added benefit of producing more numerate citizens. As Richard Kahlenberg noted in the Monthly in January, we are locked in a fight to revive American civic education. Informed citizens need to be able to consume news with a critical eye, which means having a basic understanding of statistical concepts relevant in current debates. Yet only 17 percent of high school graduates in 2019 had taken probability and statistics.
Critics claim that expanding math pathways will track disadvantaged students out of algebra programs, or that it represents a lowering of standards for students who are “less math-minded.”
“A true liberal arts education should provide students with a broad base of knowledge, and expose them to subjects outside of their major course of study,” wrote Shannon Watkins of the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal. “A shallow and impressionistic sampling of math and science is no replacement for familiarity with the real thing.” Students only seeking to gain skills for the job market, she continued, would be “better suited to attend a community college or a trade school.”
Putting aside the shameless elitism inherent in the assumption that students who choose community college or trade school are simply “unable” to do college-level math, as well as the fact that, up until recently at least, many community colleges also had core algebra requirements, Watkins misses the point: Statistics and quantitative reasoning pathways do not represent “a shallow and impressionistic sampling” of mathematics. In fact, they are concepts used more often in Americans’ everyday lives than quadratic equations, logarithms, and matrices. In a world in which college costs an average of $38,270 per year, students deserve to be taught skills that they can use to reap the returns of their investment. Keeping future nurses and educators stuck taking math classes designed for future engineers makes no sense. And we really need more nurses and educators—two of the many essential career paths for which community colleges serve as important pipelines.
Victoria Ballerini, the director of Strong Start to Finish, also counters that alternative pathways are not any less rigorous: algebra isn’t absent from other pathways, it’s just used as a tool, she said. “The idea is there are different skills required from different career pathways and majors, and we need to be mindful of that when we create that entry course,” Ballerini said. “That entry course should not be a barrier, should not be a gatekeeper. It should be something that allows a student to move forward and pursue their interests.”
The benefits of alternative math pathways at community colleges are already clear. Strong Start’s recommendation is a call for four-year institutions to adopt what’s already working across the country. “The structures that are in place in education right now are not preparing [students] in ways that make math relevant, that make math memorable, that make them want to really lean in and understand mathematics,” Wiggins said.
Removing the roadblock of college algebra while expanding statistics and quantitative reasoning courses will provide more students with applicable career skills and clearer paths to graduation. Now is the time to leave college algebra requirements in the past, where they belong.
