[zdragnar]

Mismatch is a very real thing, at least at the extremes.

My friend was a teacher at a private technical school (for manufacturing, electrician work etc) that started having revenue problems. The attempted fix was to lower the bar of candidates they took in and pushed them through more and more remedial classes, including basic maths. Their graduation rate plummeted, enrollment kept shrinking, and they went under.

I also saw a less extreme version of this in college and university while I was a student. Kids were being accepted well below standard, then pushed through remedial (aka developmental) courses to get them up to par on reading / writing / maths. The graduation rate for these students was far lower than those who didn't take the courses.

Mind you, this isn't (or at least, just because of) affirmative action. The state in question had a massive gap between what high school students graduated knowing, and what colleges required, and so was a systemic issue that affected all races.

Since then, common core was supposedly attempted, and colleges were banned from testing students into remedial courses if they met certain conditions. The end result is fewer students spending money without earning credit (remedial courses didn't count towards a degree) but it has been too recent to know whether it has had a positive impact on graduation rates or if the students who would have been forced to take them but now aren't are floundering.