Colleges, states rethink approach to college-level ‘remedial’ education; new K-12 supports also considered

The decision to invest in a college education comes with opportunity costs, including time commitment, debt and delayed income earning.

Adding to these challenges, many students find starting with remedial coursework an unwelcome and unnecessary barrier to postsecondary, and ultimately career, advancement.

A body of research shows, in fact, that remedial or “developmental” education does not significantly improve students’ abilities to tackle college-level work.

“About 15 years ago, and even before that, there started to be more data showing that many [college] students who were starting in developmental education … were leaving the courses,” Katie Beal said in July during a session at the Midwestern Legislative Conference Annual Meeting.

Beal, who works on education policy for the nonprofit, nonpartisan MDRC, added that “very few were moving on to the college-level courses and passing them, and then even fewer students were earning the degree.”

Along with Beal, other policy experts and legislators shared their insights, exploring alternatives to the traditional approach to remedial education, as well as state-level intervention strategies for high school students. The MLC Education and Workforce Development Committee organized the session.

Changing interventions

Traditionally, college students have been placed in entry-level math and English classes — sometimes referred to as “gatekeeper” courses — based solely on their performance on a placement test. Students with low test scores are put in remedial classes before advancing to other college-level work.

Under one alternative approach, the Multiple Measures Assessment, additional factors are considered when determining a student’s level of placement, including high school grade-point average or noncognitive indicators.

Beal referenced a randomized controlled trial conducted across five community colleges in Minnesota and Wisconsin. (The trial was done by the MDRC, along with researchers at Columbia University’s Community College Research Center.)

Although the report, published in 2021, found “85 percent of all students were referred to the same course level regardless of the placement procedure that was used,” the Multiple Measures method did have an effect. First, some students with low placement scores but strong high school GPAs got “bumped up”: they were given an advantage in course placement because of the measurement tool.

After three semesters, these “bumped-up” students were enrolled in more college-level courses and were more likely to complete gatekeeping courses compared to those students who underwent the traditional developmental education route.

“Multiple Measures is a relatively low-cost intervention, although it does take resources to switch over,” Beal said.

“In [a more recent] study, the Multiple Measures placement reduced costs by about $140 per student, and that’s mostly because of savings from students taking fewer developmental education credits.”

Another option is co-requisite learning: Students advance immediately to entry-level classes while concurrently receiving supplemental instruction and being enrolled in other college-level courses. Additionally, Beal said, colleges can look to better align math requirements with a student’s chosen major.

“It may make more sense, for instance, for a journalism major to take a statistics course as [their] entry-level math course instead of an algebra course,” she said.

Addressing racial gaps

For Mike Abrahamson of the Illinois-based Partnership for College Completion, the argument over the utility of placement tests ignores a larger issue facing students.

“That debate has always sounded like debating over what the best thermometer would be when we don’t even agree what the temperature for a fever is,” he said.

Abrahamson suggested the emphasis should instead be on reducing the overrepresentation of minority students in remedial courses.

Abrahamson described Illinois’ 2021 omnibus education bill, HB 2170, a measure advocated by the Legislative Black Caucus.

The law notes that in 2019, 71 percent of Black students enrolled in Illinois community colleges were placed in developmental education courses compared to 42 percent of White students.

Under the law, all community colleges are required to implement a Multiple Measures approach to placement that considers high school GPA and transfer credits. Additionally, the colleges are collecting new data, including on student demographics and course completion rates, and developing plans to improve outcomes.

The Partnership for College Completion has since collaborated with colleges across Illinois to collect and analyze this information.

According to a progress report published in early 2024, between 2020 and 2021, statewide enrollment in developmental English and developmental math dropped, by 3.6 and 12.4 percent, respectively.

The co-requisite approach already had been implemented on many campuses prior to the passage of HB 2170, and the progress report points to success with this approach.

For example, in 2020, 18 percent of students enrolled in “compressed” math courses (which combine multiple math subjects into one class) went on to pass a gatekeeper course, while 56 percent of students using co-requisite supports passed their gatekeeper course. Pell Grant recipients were also five times more likely to pass gatekeeper math courses using co-requisite supports compared to those using traditional remedial classes.

Although changes to remedial education approaches can have a positive causal effect on outcomes like graduation rates, other factors can contribute to student success.

For example, Beal highlighted successes from the ASAP Ohio program.

Based on the City University of New York’s Accelerated Study in Associate Programs, this initiative is used in three Ohio community colleges. It provides various wraparound supports — including enhanced advising, financial assistance and condensed class scheduling — to Pell Grant recipients who took developmental education courses.

According to a 2023 report by MDRC, after six years, 44 percent of students who received these supports graduated compared to 29 percent of students in the control groups. ASAP students were also more likely to go on to earn a bachelor’s degree.

Reaching high school ages

Ohio has also looked at introducing interventions for students prior to entering college. SB 162, which passed out of the Ohio Senate in late 2023, would require high schools to provide free, evidence-based interventions (such as high-dosage tutoring) for students with demonstrated needs in English and math.

“The types of interventions can be flexible, can be provided by [a school] district, a third party or both, and must be aligned with the student’s academic instruction,” said Sen. Andrew Brenner, the author of SB 162.