Of course, one of the greatest rewards to faculty for participating in basic skills instruction, indeed for taking part in innovative teaching generally, is the personal satisfaction they derive from it. Faculty members who see students improving are often eager to continue working on their behalf, but the incentive of professional recognition for their efforts is lacking, and they tend to retreat eventually into accepted practice. It is worth noting that senior faculty members at Jersey City State College who were involved in developing basic skills methodology and content for their own courses continued to do so on a voluntary basis when the pilot phase of the project came to an end after two years and future funding was uncertain.

As suggested earlier, institutions that now complain of students' "failure to recognize the values of a college education" are not properly conveying this value to students. Students must make real financial and personal sacrifices to attend colleges that often do not define their educational mission in a meaningful way. Eventually, such failures result in lessened political support from the community and a shrinking funding base.

The development and implementation of a basic skills curriculum is costly and requires that innovative funding mechanisms be sought. At the same time, the very colleges that complain about the level of funds received for credit courses do not provide credit for basic skills courses and thus do not receive funding for them. As of mid-1981, Hudson County Community College, for one, was reassessing this practice. Its faculty are documenting evidence that basic skills courses do result in students' acquiring a level of linguistic and other skills that puts them on a par with students taking credit courses. There is no reason—perhaps other than "tradition"—that basic skills courses should be noncredit courses.