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The study called “Saving Now and Saving Later” finds that states can save money by improving high school education so there’s no need to pay twice for the same education. Tara Tucci with the Alliance for Excellent Education says Texas has lost 462-million dollars paying to educate students twice. She says that figure represents the costs of taking remedial classes in college that should have mastered in high school.
“But it also represents the loss in earnings that we’ll see from students, because we know that students that need to take remedial courses are less likely to earn that postsecondary degree and as a result they, on average, have lower earnings than someone with a secondary degree.”
The study finds that in 2008 44% of students under 25 had been enrolled in one or more remedial course at public two-year institutions and 27% at public four-year institutions.
Tucci also says it is students who bear a lot of that financial burden.
“Remedial course aren’t credit bearing, once they complete them and get back up to the minimum level to take college credit bearing courses, then they have to pay for those courses as well.”
Tucci says “Saving Now and Saving Later” is all about saving money and getting more bang for the buck. To find out more about the paper, visit the study “Saving Now and Saving Later”.