Dropping your kid off at college is one of a parent’s proudest moments. You’ve guided them through the elementary school play, middle school dances, and the (eventual) thrill of college acceptance. Now they have their NJ high school diploma guaranteeing they are “prepared…for success in postsecondary degree programs, careers, and civic life.”
So then why do NJ colleges need to test that they actually know math? Doesn’t that high school diploma prove it?
Not quite.
For example, Stockton University requires the Accuplacer test for any student who doesn’t clear a standardized test score threshold of 570 on the SAT or 24 on the ACT math sections (or chooses to not submit test scores, which 70% do). After completing the Accuplacer college freshmen are sorted into the math courses that meet their current knowledge.
The result? As Stockton University’s course enrollments show, roughly 83% of Fall 2025 freshmen have to take a course in Algebra or lower level math. As a reminder, Algebra is a high school graduation requirement in New Jersey.
So should we blame Stockton, a top 100 public university, for admitting these students? Not exactly. Stockton is at least being honest about incoming students’ need for math courses that prepare them for their undergrad studies. Whether these students should be admitted or not is a broader question about colleges’ standards vs. their revenue model.
Moreover, most of these underskilled students earned A’s and B’s in math throughout middle and high school. They were told they are ready for college. Perhaps if NJSLA and NJGPA test scores were taken as seriously as report cards, these recent high-school grads would be less shocked at their first-year college math course placement. But they are the victims in this story.
So who is most to blame for this? The brightest spotlight shines on NJ’s preK-12 system, and the individual districts who fail to prepare their graduates and, even worse, mislead them into thinking they are ready for college coursework. Aside from the legal questions around issuing diplomas that don’t align with state statutes, telling a high school student they’re ready for college when they clearly are not is a moral failure of our system.
All of this blame has a real cost. These first-year college students - your current or future children - are now footing the bill in both dollars and course hours for what your high school failed to deliver.
And so are the rest of us. Stockton receives $40 million in state taxpayer funding. Unfortunately, a large portion of the funds are now diverted to courses that are redundant with a proper middle and high school education.
Here’s a quick algebra question.
Let x = NJ’s $26,558 per pupil spending for each year from K through 12th grade.
13x = what we spend over a child’s K-12 years often to leave them without basic academic skills.
If you purchased a $345,000 freezer only for your ice cream to melt a day after installation, you’d be pretty heated (just like the ice cream). You’d also have the recourse of a warranty to get your money back. A NJ high school diploma should carry the same guarantee. Instead, for too many graduates, that paper is worth little more than a price tag.
