California’s Elite Universities Are Discovering That Academic Standards Matter

California universities are facing growing calls to reinstate standardized testing, and the reasons continue to become clearer. 

Zvezdelina Stankova, a mathematics professor at the University of California (UC), Berkeley, revealed in an op-ed published over the weekend that while she is supposed to be teaching calculus at one of the nation’s top engineering schools, she is spending much of her time reteaching college students middle-school-level math.

“I teach mathematics at UC Berkeley. Three days a week, I stand in front of lecture halls with 500 to 1,400 students. By the second week of the semester, I already know who is in trouble. Some students are five to eight years behind in mathematics. Office hours that should be…

— Chris Hoofnagle (@hoofnagle) August 15, 2026

“I teach mathematics at UC Berkeley. Three days a week, I stand in front of lecture halls with 500 to 1,400 students. By the second week of the semester, I already know who is in trouble. Some students are five to eight years behind in mathematics,” Zvezdelina Stankova of UC Berkeley, wrote on Saturday for the San Francisco Standard. “Some students are five to eight years behind in mathematics. Office hours that should be spent discussing integrals instead become lessons on fractions and basic algebra you would expect students to learn in middle school.”

Stankova pointed to a diagnostic exam given to Calculus I students.

Before 2020, 71 percent of those tested were “ready or nearly ready” for calculus, and only 0.14 percent scored below basic algebra between 2018 and 2020. After standardized testing was no longer a requirement, the numbers fell drastically. Between 2021 and 2023 just 44 percent were “ready or nearly ready.” By 2022-23, more than a third of calculus students showed severe math deficits, and the most common score on the diagnostic exam was zero.

Beginning in fall 2021, the University of California system began eliminating the requirement for SAT and ACT scores driven partly by the COVID pandemic and largely by efforts to address what officials called “inequitable” admissions rates. Stankova now describes the resulting admissions process as looking “less like careful evaluation” of students “and more like chance.”

Stankova went on to note that while many universities are reversing what is now widely recognized as a broadly harmful policy, the UC system has been slow to follow suit, and is wasting valuable time that comes at a direct cost to its students. Despite the mounting evidence against the lack of standardized testing, a review by the Academic Senate will not conclude until June 2027, meaning any change in admissions policy will not take effect until after the fall 2028 class has already begun.

This comes as hundreds of UC professors signed a letter earlier this year calling for the restoration of standardized testing in the face of results that were largely predictable.

Editor’s Note: Do you enjoy Townhall’s conservative reporting that takes on the radical Left and woke media? Support our work so that we can continue to bring you the truth.

Join Townhall VIP and use promo code FIGHT to receive 60% off your membership.