UW System gets grant for math help

$2.3M to help freshmen struggling with subject

The University of Wisconsin System has received a $2.3 million grant from a Madison-based student loan servicer to help students who struggle with math and to boost their chances of earning a college degree.

The goal of the UW System’s ongoing Math Initiative is to reduce the number of freshmen placed in remedial math courses — courses that cost students money, but do not bear college credit. It’s designed to help them succeed in the first credit-bearing math course for their chosen field during their first year on campus.

Research suggests that if students who arrive unprepared for college math complete their first math course in their first year, they have a better chance of returning a second year and are as like- ly to graduate as students who are considered better prepared for math.

The teaching approach is changed so the students get more practice problem-solving in class with a professor, and also extra help in tutoring labs and regular classes designed for group tutoring.

The $2.3 million grant is from Great Lakes Higher Education Corporation & Affiliates, a student loan guarantor and servicer for more than 8 million borrowers. Its philanthropy program promotes higher education access and college completion for students of color, lowincome students and first-generation students.

Several UW campuses, including UW-Milwaukee, are working to improve graduation rates for black students, low-income students, and firstgeneration college students.

UWM has one of the worst achievement gaps between black and white students in the country. Only 1 in 5 black students who enroll at UWM graduate within six years, in many cases, because they can’t handle college-level math and drop out.

The systemwide Math Initiative also is designed to ensure that students who transfer within the UW System and remain within the same broad field of study will meet the math requirements, using this coordinated approach. The Math Initiative builds on work already done at UW institutions and adapts national models.

“This grant allows UW System to build on work underway to place the right students in the right math courses at the right time,” said James P. Henderson, UW System’s vice president of academic and student affairs.

For example, students in some fields may benefit more from an introductory statistics or quantitative reasoning course than from a college algebra course designed as a pre-requisite for calculus.

Instead of every student taking algebra, the initiative focuses on math skills graduates will need to succeed in their chosen field.