Metro

Unprepared NYC graduates spend $63M a year on remedial classes

Thousands of city public-school graduates falter as college freshmen, and have to empty their pockets because of it, according to a new report.

Ill-prepared for collegiate course work, more than 21,000 city graduates end up shelling out an average of $3,000 annually for remedial classes, according to a study by pro-charter advocacy group StudentFirstNY.

Dubbing these costs a hidden “remediation tax,” the report estimated that they pay roughly $63 million a year to absorb basic knowledge they should have learned in high school.

“Students are forced to pick up the slack for a K-12 system that failed them — depleting whatever grants, scholarships, loans or personal resources they had planned to use to pay for college,” the report said.

Mayor de Blasio has cited the city’s 72 percent graduation rate as tangible evidence of improvement, but the city’s overall college readiness rate languished at 37 percent last year.

The college readiness threshold is met when students get minimum scores on standardized tests or pass certain courses before graduating. According to CUNY standards, students who meet these requirements won’t need remedial classes.

Several CUNY students who were forced to take and pay for remedial classes gathered at City Hall Thursday to call attention to the matter.

“It’s just really disappointing to learn that the high school diploma I just received does me no good in college,” said Bronx International HS grad Cristian Cruz.

The Department of Education said the report inflated the number of kids needing remedial classes and argued that college readiness rates have been improving.

“Every single city college readiness measure is at a record high and increasing,” said DOE spokesman Will Mantell, adding that the city has a number of initiatives in place to address the issue.