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 The Obama administration and state governments are forcing colleges and universities to tailor higher education closely to meet the needs of corporate America. In these attempts, they are pushing colleges to put an end to remedial education. These courses are actually used by working class students and are being pushed on to community colleges.

One way to make this happen is to restrict state and federal financial aids to four year universities and colleges. More than 10 states have stopped funding for remedial education at four year colleges. Oklahoma and Nevada are the two states that have taken extra steps by simply refusing state funding for remediation. South Carolina and Colorado transferred remedial education funds to community colleges even before several years.

This policy is not aiming to improve access to remedial courses. Instead, it seems to create an unequal higher education system in which the working class students will have little or no chance to get university level education. The working class children will be deprived of college education fully or they may be forced to adopt the community college system. The Obama administration seems to change community college system simply into training centers that would train them for manufacturing and service industry jobs offering lower wages.

The director of the national center for Developmental education stated that removing remedial education from four year colleges and universities may lead to discrimination in higher education,  where only students belonging to higher income class can go to universities and working class students go to community colleges.

Remedial courses in colleges were designed originally as refresher courses for students who return to school after some period of time and students who had difficulties in school. Nutritional deficiencies, destruction of the social safety net, reduced funds, underperforming K-12 systems and many other factors lead to this disadvantaged category of students. Students having cognitive and behavioral problems also go to community colleges, as they have no other opportunities.

The problem is the community colleges are not well equipped to meet the requirements of disadvantaged students. More often, adjunct and part time instructors teach community college courses. They have little or no training, so they are not able to help these students. A study shows that part time instructors taught around 79% of the remedial courses in 2010.

Part time instructors who have less experience in teaching are often hired just before the semesters, because the community colleges wait to see which classes will be profitable. They decide to retain or drop classes, depending on the seats filled.

Jonathan Gibraltar, president of Frostburg State University, Maryland said that Obama’s call to do more will lead the administrators of non elite universities and community colleges to practice to do more with fewer dollars.

Connecting funding with degree completion rate hurts, as more number of community college students does part time jobs and only a few percentage of students complete associate degree within four years. As a result, community colleges will face federal funding cuts. This would force them to seek corporate to fund their operations and the schools would implement curricula that meet the needs of regional employers.