A UC San Diego Senate–Administration working group report found a near‑30‑fold rise in incoming students placing below middle‑school math levels over five years, with remedial math enrollment surging to 921 students in fall 2025. The campus linked the deterioration to COVID learning loss, the elimination of standardized tests, grade inflation and expanded admissions from under‑resourced high schools. San Diego’s remediation challenges exceed those elsewhere in the UC system, prompting the campus to redesign remedial offerings in 2023 and to add a second remedial course for 2024. The report warns that growing underpreparation threatens quantitative instruction across majors and will likely require expanded academic support, long‑term curricular redesign and reallocation of instructional resources. Chancellors, enrollment officers and curriculum committees must integrate stronger diagnostics, partner with K–12 districts, and reexamine placement policies to preserve degree progress and time‑to‑degree.