Cost-cutting measures are threatening the future of courses inspired by the mission of St Katharine Drexel to help disadvantaged students in the US acquire the basic language skills they need to get through university courses and into work In the United States, the history of higher education over the past 70 years has largely been a history of expansion, attracting students of different classes, and different ethnicities. Being educated to degree standard before the Second World War was mainly the province of white men. Today, America’s undergraduates are vastly diverse, but that diversity has required substantial investment. If you spot “basic writing” on a timetable, you are pinpointing part of that investment. Basic-writing – once known as remedial English &nd