UC Professors Push to Bring Back SAT as Students Struggle With Basic Math

University of California faculty are mounting a serious campaign to bring back standardized testing in admissions, arguing that too many incoming students cannot handle basic high school math. The push has implications for the testing industry, tutoring companies, and the broader edtech complex.

What the professors are saying

More than 1,400 University of California faculty have signed an open letter calling on the system to reinstate the ACT or SAT as an admissions requirement for science, technology, engineering or math students. UC stopped requiring the standardized exams in 2020.

More than 3,000 UC faculty members have signed letters calling for at least some form of standardized-testing requirement. The system’s board of regents plans to review the academic senate’s recommendation by June 2027, with a potential change coming as soon as the 2028 admissions cycle.

The anecdote making the rounds: about a dozen first-year UC Berkeley students gathered inside a classroom in Evans Hall, where math professor Zvezdelina Stankova held office hours for one of her calculus sections. The students came for calculus help but struggled to answer a middle-school level algebra problem: solving for x from the equation 7x – 5 = 9.

Why grades alone aren’t cutting it

The faculty argue that GPA and essays no longer separate ready students from unready ones. The current admissions metrics, based primarily on GPA and essays, can no longer reliably distinguish readiness for university-level STEM majors in an era of severe grade inflation and AI-assisted application essays.

Their ask is specific: require SAT/ACT mathematics scores for applicants to STEM-intensive majors, effective with the 2027 cycle.

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The pushback

Opponents say the tests disadvantage low-income and minority applicants. The association, which represents 237,000 undergraduate students at the UC, does not believe SAT/ACT will result in better prepared students, noting that racial and ethnic diversity at the UC increased after 2020 while the system posted no decline in graduation rates.

Application volume has also surged under test-blind admissions. Supporters point to the boom in applications since UC dropped the tests, with a record 251,907 for fall 2026.

The political overlay

The Trump administration is aggressively pushing for a return to standardized testing in college admissions, part of a campaign to reshape higher education that put it on a collision course with the California university system.

Last year, the White House froze roughly $500 million in research grants to UCLA — most was reinstated by a federal judge but the threat of further cuts persists. The policy fight is now tangled with federal funding leverage.

Options market and stocks to watch

If standardized testing regains footing at the country’s largest public university system, it flows through to test prep, publishing, and edtech names.

• ATGE (Adtalem Global Education): watch for sentiment shifts as the higher-ed admissions debate reshapes enrollment funnels.
• LOPE (Grand Canyon Education): watch for read-throughs on admissions standards and enrollment competition.
• CHGG (Chegg): watch for demand signals if underprepared students drive tutoring and homework-help usage higher.
• DUOL (Duolingo): watch as the broader test-prep category, including its English test business, gets re-rated on any testing revival.
• PSO (Pearson): watch for exposure to assessment and testing content if U.S. standardized testing regains momentum.

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