An incoming student that can't write a cogent essay or do basic math problems simply isn't ready for any traditional degree program. The best they can do, if they're not going to grind through remedial courses, is to start training for a job.
x2. The more academic requirements of a 4yr degree are not strict necessities of those fields. If college is going to stand in for vocational school then it's a waste of time/effort/money to make those students take what amounts to academic fluff.
The problem is that until colleges acknowledge their vocational role every department will be pushing for every other department to require students to take a few of their classes on the basis that it is a requirement of a well rounded education (which is not the kind of education students in the more vocational programs are seeking).
This seems to be the case with grad programs now too: doing the teaching that undergrad should have already done. Turtles all the way down.
Simmilarly, most research in CS will involve using programming as a tool, even if it is not the final product. The problem is that in CS, no one thinks to require the graduate students to take basic programming classes.
But for students focusing in complexity, they may not need to program at all, so naturally it makes sense there would not be much emphasis on programming.
http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=398
relevant song by scott aaronson
If I put on my tinfoil hat, I start to think that the UC change is intended (at least in part) to avoid exposing the failures of California's primary and secondary schools. If they stop doing these tests, it becomes more difficult to demonstrate that the education up through high school was a failure.
EDIT: formatting
If you go back enough, the historical role of college has been that of a "finishing school" for the higher/educated classes. More so, the further you go back.
In places with a more conscious class heritage (eg UK), talented students saw these colleges as a merit-based ticket into the higher classes. Over time, academic merit gained prominence.
Social class largely overlaps with academic merit, so the identities didn't clash too hard. But, you can see both heritages in modern Universities.
For example...Colleges (esp US) are very interested in college as "tranformative years of my life" experience. Generally speaking, this is a luxury only the rich could afford. For the median family, this is still a massive expense.
TLDR: roles change.
[1998] http://articles.latimes.com/1998/may/28/local/me-54085
>The Times reported in March on data from the California State University system showing that roughly half of the freshmen at the Fullerton campus failed basic-skills placement exams and had to enroll in remedial math and English courses. New statistics released Wednesday show that those students had a mean high school grade-point average of 3.1, or a B.
> "How can it be that students can be getting Bs in English and not pass a fairly basic test and end up having to take a remedial class?" Klammer asked... "We cannot afford, as a state, to be reteaching high school classwork at the university," he said.