SLOWLY, THEY COME AROUND.

Inside Higher Ed provides Arthur M. Hauptman, who describes himself as "a public policy consultant specializing in higher education finance issues," which is a fancy way of saying "swamp denizen," with a platform to consider "Refinancing Remediation."

Every year, because of inadequacies in the K-12 education process, millions of students enrolling in college must take at least one remedial course in math or English because they are not fully prepared for college or career. Although estimates vary, it seems at least one half of community college students and one-fifth of students in four-year colleges take at least one remedial course; many more students enrolling in for-profit schools require remediation, whether they take a course or not. It is also clear that rates of remediation are higher for students from low-income families than they are for the average college student. Of even greater concern, the probability that students taking remedial courses will graduate is much smaller than the already modest completion rates in American higher education.

The most objectionable part of the current student aid system is how this remediation is financed. Students who take remedial courses are typically charged the same tuition as for college-level courses, even though remedial courses usually cost institutions less because class sizes are large and adjunct professors or instructors teach these courses.

Catch that "because of inadequacies?" Caused by whom? Blank-out.

Regular readers understand that it's not right to require collegians to pay for high school twice, which, no matter whether you call it "remediation" or "development" or "accommodation" or "special education" is what you're doing.  That's true whether you put your best teachers or the adjunct whose c.v. came over the transom yesterday or a circus clown moonlighting in the off-season in the classroom.

Apparently the matriculants who turn up in the remedial classes often have deficiencies in other basic skills, which leads Mr Hauptman to the following leap of logic.

For these reasons, this system of paying for remediation must be fixed so that we avoid a continuation of current situation in which millions of students take on large debts they have little chance of repaying. The high school dropouts and graduates requiring remediation also deserve a system in which the chances of their improving their basic skills are significantly improved. And to the extent these changes would improve the basic skills of those who now can’t compete in today’s workforce, this may be the single most important thing we can do to improve our national ability to compete globally.

Let's leave that "national ability to compete globally" aside, as it's a screaming non-sequitur.  "[K]nowledge-intensive high-technology products can be produced using high-skilled workers (think iron puddlers and Web designers) or using low-skilled workers with easy-to-use machinery (think automobile assembly plants and picture presets on McDonald's cash registers.)" Perhaps higher education can produce more of the first type of worker (although that will depress earnings); it's up to entrepreneurs to adapt production technologies to the second type of worker (which has the effect of raising earnings).  Let's work backwards, perhaps that "system in which the chances of their improving their basic skills" is something other than Woke Education, in which, somehow, the students who develop those skills are implicitly sell-outs, "code shifters," to use the current locution.  That gets us back to the heart of the matter.  Instead of the Divine Passive, "must be fixed," let's come up with some action items.  First, identify the high schools that are sending graduates out unprepared.  Second, send them the bill.

Mr Hauptman is not ready to go there yet.

To do this, the financing of remediation should be overhauled so that providers are compensated based on their ability to improve the basic skills of students taking remedial courses and students no longer pay tuition or need to borrow for these courses. That would require moving to a performance-based system of remediation in which students would not be charged tuition for any remedial courses they take. Instead, federal, state and local governments would pay colleges, schools and the other providers of remediation a fee by for doing so, with the providers who do the best job of increasing the competencies of students getting the most reimbursement and the most business.

At least one commenter is.