By admin 
For months, a sizable group of University of California professors have been demanding the reinstatement of standardized test requirements in the undergraduate admissions policy. Their main reason? A widening gap in mathematics ability among students in their classrooms.
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New data presented at the UC Board of Regents meeting Wednesday shows that more first-year students are failing introductory math courses now than six years ago when the university moved to a test-blind admissions process. In every other subject, average grades in introductory courses have remained stable over that time. As UC leaders work towards a decision on what has become the most polarizing question before them this year — to SAT or not to SAT — supporters of standardized testing see the new data as proof of their case while critics suggest the math problem has larger roots and needs more comprehensive solutions.
“It’s essential that the university take the time required to fully investigate the nature, causes, and history of gaps in math readiness, which have been growing nationwide for a decade or more,” said Pamela Burdman, executive director of equity-focused policy institute Just Equations, during public comment. “Admissions policies did not cause these gaps and cannot remedy them.”
The UC dropped the SAT and ACT test requirement from its undergraduate admissions policy in 2020 amid growing concern that it was discriminatory against students from marginalized communities. That coincided with the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, a period that created large-scale learning loss across the state and nation at the school and college level. In 2025, 57% of 11th graders in California met the state standard in English and less than 31% in mathematics. While these rates have been rising over the last few years, they remain below pre-pandemic levels.
The math problem
Between the 2020-21 and 2025-26 school years, the number of first-year students who got a D or F grade, withdrew or did not pass in calculus, precalculus and preparatory math courses increased from 13% to 18%. Simultaneously, the average GPA in these introductory courses dropped from 2.95 to 2.71 during this same period. In other lower-division math courses, the percentage of failing students rose from 6% to 8%, and the average GPA fell from 3.39 to 3.15 over the last five years.
While not every major at the UC requires calculus, more than 30% of first-year students that entered the system in Fall 2023 took a calculus, precalculus or preparatory math course in their first two years. Another 41% enrolled in courses beyond introductory calculus and the remainder of less than 30% did not enroll in any calculus class.
“We now observe preparation gaps so severe that instructors must reteach middle-school mathematics while simultaneously teaching the material students need for sciences, engineering, economics, and other quantitatively demanding fields,” UC math faculty wrote in a June letter that triggered the SAT debate and has now been signed by more than 2,300 STEM professors.
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“The widening spread between under-prepared and well-prepared students creates polarized courses, weakening the foundation available to many students and making it harder to teach at the level required for advanced STEM work,” they wrote.
This math problem marks a departure from the trend in all other subjects, where average grades and the number of students failing have remained relatively flat. Across all introductory courses, only about 7% of first-year students failed a class in 2025-26, a number that has increased by a percentage point over the last five years. The average GPA across subjects for first-year students, meanwhile, has dropped slightly from 3.4 in 2020-21 when the pandemic resulted in more flexible grading practices to 3.3 at present.
Four-year graduation rates, too, are at an all-time high. This refers to the percentage of undergraduate students who entered the university as freshmen and completed their bachelor’s degrees within four years. The four-year graduation rate increased from 68% for the cohort that entered in 2014 to 74% for the 2021 cohort. Non-STEM students have consistently had higher four-year rates than STEM entrants, but that gap is narrowing, per the latest data.
What now?
To address the math problem, the UC system is adapting instructional approaches to support students, UC Vice President Pamela Brown said. One part of this is the development of courses that connect mathematics instruction to the skills students will need in their careers. For example, eight UC campuses offer Calculus for Life Sciences courses, which use biological examples to teach calculus concepts.
Simultaneously, the university is conducting a formal review process of its admissions policies to see if it needs to make any changes to ensure incoming students are prepared for college. This includes looking into the reinstatement of the standardized test requirement as well as an evaluation of the A-G course requirements that high school students must complete to be eligible for entry to the UC system.
The Academic Senate is leading this effort, and is expected to provide a recommendation on standardized testing to the Board of Regents by June next year. The earliest a change could be enacted, per this timeline, is in the 2027 admissions cycle for the cohort entering university in fall 2028.
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