What is to be done?

Two recent stories, one at The Atlantic and the other at Inside Higher Ed, raise an uncomfortable issue: what happens when the official policies of a college or university rub up against an instructor's standards?

The story at Inside Higher Ed is of the professor at Norfolk State who was denied tenure for failing too many of his students. Now, there may be issues here that aren't covered in the article--issues about expectations, for example--but this part is especially pertinent: Although school policy is that students must attend 80% of class sessions, many do not and receive passing grades anyway, since "there is a clear expectation from administrators — in particular from Dean Sandra J. DeLoatch, the dean whose recommendation turned the tide against Aird’s tenure bid — that 70 percent of students should pass."

The Atlantic story, "In the Basement of the Ivory Tower," is Professor X's meditation on the spot--between his shoulder blades, to be exact--where the good ideal that everyone deserves a college education meets his underprepared student, Ms. L:

By passing Ms. L., I would be eroding the standards of the school for which I worked. Besides, I nurse a healthy ration of paranoia. What if she were a plant from The New York Times doing a story on the declining standards of the nation’s colleges? In my mind’s eye, the front page of a newspaper spun madly, as in old movies, coming to rest to reveal a damning headline:

THIS IS A C?

Illiterate Mess Garners ‘Average’ Grade

Adjunct Says Student ‘Needed’ to Pass, ‘Tried Hard’

No, I would adhere to academic standards, and keep myself off the front page.

I'm troubled by both of these articles, so let's apply a little Lenin to the subject: what is to be done?

Institute more remedial preparatory courses at the college level? But in times of cutbacks, state legislatures and students taking out loans are both disinclined to lengthen the time it takes to get a degree.

Stop admitting "underprepared" students to college? This is troubling on a whole lot of levels, especially given this country's history of class, race, and gender prejudice.

Hire a lot more people to work one-on-one with people like Professor X's Ms. L? See the first point: who's going to pay for this?

Slide along and adapt grading standards so that the students who work hard can get the "gentlewoman's C-"? Isn't this what's happening, though, in the high schools where parents bully administrators to admit their kids into AP classes and then immediately start a campaign to water down the content since the classes are "too hard"?

Decide that college isn't for everyone? Professor X suggests this, but until there's equality of income and status for those who pursue alternate career tracks, it's not likely to fly.

What are your thoughts?