America’s mania for luring as many young people as possible into college necessitates enrolling lots of very weak, often academically disengaged students who are far behind many others in their ability to do even the easiest college work. The “solution” used to be making such students take remedial English and math in their first semester. In North Carolina, however, we don’t like admitting that college students are doing high school stuff and one result of that is the “Summer Bridge” program. In today’s Pope Center piece, Jesse Saffron takes a critical look at the program.

Academically weak students are encouraged to enter the program, which lasts 4-5 weeks, and each school has its own catchy name such as “Creating Higher Expectations for Educational Readiness” at Fayetteville State — CHEER.

An official report makes it seem as though Summer Bridge is a success. After all, it has a high completion rate, with 85-95 percent of the students earning C or higher. Furthermore, those students have their Summer Bridge grades factored into their first year GPAs. That allows, Saffron writes, “the university system to boast that participants’ cumulative GPA are higher after the first year than those of traditional students.” Afterwards, however, the apparent benefit disappears.

One thing we just don’t know is how rigorous those Summer Bridge classes are. I have a hunch that instructors are hesitant to give out D or F grades that would make themselves look like ogres and lead to more skepticism about this nice-sounded, well-meaning program. It’s also hard to believe that it’s possible to make much progress with students who have enormous educational deficits owing to the low standards and expectations of their earlier schooling.

Saffron concludes skeptically: “The state is spending millions of dollars on a program that each year drives roughly 300 low-performing students into a four-year university, where they tend to earn poor grades, drop out, or otherwise fail to graduate with a reasonable time. That’s wasting taxpayer money and the time, effort and resources of the students, faculty, and staff involved with the program.”