Engineering Degree - University entry, USA, at a bottom-end but still accredited University, 2019
I'm in a state of shock right now, having just discovered that the reason that there's so many terribly-young professors in the fanfiction world is that in the US, the track is not tutor -> lecturer -> professor, but assistant professor -> associate professor -> professor. So it seems that most of the young "professors" in the fics are assistant professors - it's just not mentioned because that's something most US readers would know.
(By the way, I know the term "graduate school" is often used for these institutions, but I'm going to use "university" instead, because I want the full post-school-to-graduation education under one roof, instead of college + Graduate School )
So - imagine if you would a small, low-end university. It's still accredited. If you graduate from this uni with a degree in Engineering, you'll be a graduate Engineer. But it's not one with lots of people lining up to go to it. The town is boring, the faculty is underfunded (yes, I know most faculties are underfunded, but I'm talking 4 students to a circuit board or microscope underfunded), and anyone with a decent mark has scarpered to the prestigious University in the capital city or even further.
The other trouble is the output. Because this place has a very low entry score, it tends to get a lot of kids who normally wouldn't even think of going to Uni, and for whom the work and the level of thinking required is a huge shock. Thus the proportion of first year enrolments to fourth-year graduations is quite depressing. And because funding is based on the number of graduates, this only makes things worse. So - to the questions.
I understand a GPA of 2.50 is generally the lowest possible entry score for a degree, but my questions are two:
a) Could there be an even-lower entry score? 2.20 for instance?
b) Is there always a mathematical level requirement to be accepted for these engineering degrees? I ask from a place where getting the required "GPA" level is sufficient, even if there is no maths in it whatsoever (and you can imagine how badly that often turns out).