UC Freshmen Are Failing Intro Math at Nearly Double the Rate Since the System Dropped the SAT and ACT, Per EdSource

The Numbers

More University of California freshmen are failing introductory math.

18 percent of UC freshmen got a D or F, withdrew or did not pass an intro math class in 2025-26, nearly double the 9.2 percent in 2020-21, the last year UC required the SAT or ACT, per UC data reported by EdSource.

The average grade in those classes fell from 3.18 to 2.71.

The campus split is wide. At UC Merced, 36.4 percent of freshmen failed or withdrew, the highest rate of any campus. At UC Santa Barbara, the figure was 8.2 percent.

The Testing Question Returns

UC dropped standardized testing requirements in the name of access, becoming the largest and most prominent US university system to go test-free. The new data lands directly on that decision: the first full cohorts admitted without test scores are struggling in the first quantitative class many of them take.

UC is now weighing whether to bring back standardized testing, with a faculty report on testing due in February.

The report's recommendation will set up a fight the system has been avoiding. Test-optional and test-free policies spread across US higher education after 2020; a reversal by UC, the system's flagship adopter, would carry weight far beyond California.

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Options and Market Impact

The listed education names most exposed to admissions-testing policy are the test-prep and tutoring companies that lost their core market when testing went optional, names like Chegg, and the online educators like Stride whose enrollments ride on how prepared incoming students are.

Watch the February faculty report. A recommendation to restore testing at UC would be the strongest signal yet that the test-free era in US admissions is ending.

Bottom Line

Per EdSource, 18 percent of UC freshmen failed, withdrew from or did not pass intro math in 2025-26, nearly double the rate in the last year the system required the SAT or ACT. The testing debate UC thought it had settled is back.

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