Did you know that there’s a tremendous college readiness gap for the majority of community college freshmen? We can change this. FUEL’s Accuplacer initiative with Bunker Hill Community College and Chelsea High School provides college placement testing and developmental education for high-school credit while students are still in high school.
Most low-income high-school graduates are, for a variety of reasons, unprepared for college. Research tells us that 60 percent of full-time degree-seeking students who enroll in community colleges require developmental (remedial) education. Financially-strapped school systems have extremely limited resources to create an aspirational culture in which a college education is seen as a ticket to the middle class.
The Accuplacer is a standardized college placement test used by state and community colleges to determine if a student needs developmental coursework to be college-ready. The exam is usually taken once, without any preparation. Low scores require students to complete non-credit developmental courses before they can take classes for college credit. This poses a financial burden to students and their families, and often causes them to abandon their college plans.
By involving low-income high-school students and their families in this initiative, we can prevent frustration and failure due to lack of support services. Our success in engaging these aspiring college students is evident in our first round of testing. We registered 20 Chelsea FUEL students for the exam, and many are now applying to college along with their peers.
