The University of California system’s STEM faculty warned that incoming students lack basic math skills and urged a return to standardized math tests for admissions, citing massive preparation gaps, grade inflation, and the effects of pandemic-era test-optional policies.
Conservative critics have long argued public schools prioritize ideology over fundamentals, and UC professors now say those priorities show up in college classrooms as students struggle with essential math. Over 550 STEM faculty signed a letter asking leadership to reinstate an SAT or ACT math requirement beginning with the 2027 admissions cycle, arguing that optional testing left the system blind to serious shortcomings. The professors document cases where instructors must reteach middle school math before advancing to college-level material.
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The UC admissions model shifted in 2020 when testing went optional during the COVID-19 era, leaving admissions to rely heavily on GPA, course lists, and essays. Faculty describe a policy environment shaped by severe grade inflation and AI-assisted application essays that mask true preparation. When students arrive underprepared, the classroom becomes the place where those gaps cause the most damage, slowing classes and forcing faculty to backtrack on core concepts.
Data cited by faculty makes the point bluntly: a UC-San Diego study found that in five years the count of students with math skills below high school level grew nearly thirtyfold. Nearly 70 percent of that group tested below middle school level, a trend faculty say is intolerable for STEM programs that depend on sequential math mastery. Diagnostic testing at one major campus showed nearly one-third of calculus students had “severe preparation deficits,” a finding that professors say translates into longer completion times and lost learning opportunities.
Those professors reject the idea that testing itself is the barrier to equity. They argue that without objective measures, inequities simply get hidden and then amplified inside classrooms where remediation is harder and more costly. Restoring a standardized math metric, they believe, would expose gaps earlier and allow targeted support before students hit college-level coursework.
Opponents of standardized tests call them inaccurate and inequitable, but faculty counter that failing to measure preparation is worse. The letter to UC leadership insists measurement is necessary to create fair access to education, not to police it. In short: you cannot level the playing field by refusing to measure who can play.
Beyond test policy, the professors point to broader curriculum and cultural choices that divert time away from fundamentals. When K-12 systems emphasize ideological topics over rigorous math and science instruction, students arrive at university with shaky foundations. Professors report spending precious weeks reinforcing arithmetic and algebra instead of moving forward with engineering and science material.
That shift has workforce consequences. STEM fields require cumulative knowledge, and delays or gaps in math readiness slow degree progress and reduce the pipeline of engineers, technicians, and scientists. For a nation that needs skilled workers, sending underprepared students into higher education without clear measures of readiness is a policy failure with real economic costs.
Faculty also raise concerns about transparency and accountability in admissions. Test-optional policies were intended as temporary measures during the pandemic, but many institutions kept them, creating what professors call a “permanent vulnerability.” The worry is that optional policies become permanent conveniences for administrations while masking deeper declines in preparation.
Fixes proposed by the faculty are straightforward: reinstate a math testing requirement for STEM applicants and use the results diagnostically to identify students needing support. They envision tests that provide clear signals about where remediation belongs and how to allocate resources effectively. This approach treats assessment as a tool for equity and student success rather than as a punitive gatekeeping device.
Critics will argue that testing disadvantages some groups, but the faculty maintain that unknown deficits do more harm than known ones. When preparation gaps are measured, colleges can design bridge programs and targeted tutoring so students are not left behind. In this view, accountability and measurement are necessary steps toward genuine inclusion.
At stake is a higher-education system that can reliably prepare students for demanding careers rather than mask shortfalls until they become failures in the classroom and the workforce. The UC faculty letter is a blunt reminder that policy choices have consequences and that measurement and standards matter if colleges are to fulfill their mission.
Below are the original faculty words preserved exactly as they wrote them:
“SAT/ACT mathematics requirement is not an obstacle to equity; rather it is a prerequisite for it. Failing to measure preparation gaps does not remove barriers; it moves them into the classroom, where they become harder to overcome.”
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