When reading this I had to wonder if civil engineering is what this kid wants to do? My son just graduated in civil and while I have no basis to compare it to other types of engineering it is not any easy major, especially not for someone that math doesn’t come easily to. All engineering programs take a lot of dedication. I am mentioning this in case the expectation of it being an easy major was part of the reason for the choice. My son’s college required some students to start with precalc based on a proficiency test. It wasn’t necessarily unusual for some to start math at that level. An interesting thing that was said at orientation was that students tended to be as successful in the engineering program as they were in their first math class whether the first class was precalc or calc 2. That was based on their statistics so of course individual result may vary. As others have said it depends a lot on why this kid failed and also if this is a degree this kid really wants. It could be that even if you can tutor this kid to be successful with this class depending on how difficult it is to make this happen and his drive for success with this program you may not be doing him a favor. Of course if all he need is some help to get rolling then it might be all good. But as stated in the post above it is almost for sure that it will take at least 5 years to graduate.