Ten Years of Data in Tennessee Shows Unexpected Outcome When Colleges Drop Remedial Courses
“The evidence shows that these changes do not increase graduation rates,” said Alex Goudas, a higher education researcher and community college professor at Delta College in Michigan, who was not involved in the study. “Some students benefit slightly – only temporarily – and other students are permanently damaged.”
It seems strange. Students initially pass more courses, but are also more likely to drop out and less likely to receive credits. Florence Xiaotao Ran, an assistant professor at the University of Delaware and lead researcher on the Tennessee study, explained to me that dropouts appear to be different types of students than those who earn more credits. Students with slightly higher ACT test scores in high school, who were closer to the remedial ed cutoff of 19 points (out of 36) and who scored closer to the 50th percentile nationally, were more likely to pass the new required courses immediately. Some students who were well below this threshold also passed the required courses, but many more failed. Students below the 10th percentile (13 and below on the ACT) dropped out in large numbers and were less likely to receive a short-term certificate.
Data from other states show a similar pattern. In California, which largely eliminated remedial education in 2019, failure rates in college math courses rose, even as more students passed the courses, according to the study. study at a two-year Spanish service college in southern California.
Ran’s Tennessee analysis has two important implications. The new required courses – as they currently work – do not work well for low-achieving students. And this change doesn’t even help students who can earn a lot of college credits within the first year or two of college. They are still struggling to get a degree and are not getting a college degree quickly.
Some critics of fundamental reforms, such as Goudas of Delta College, argue that some form of remedial education needs to be restored for students who lack basic math, reading and writing skills.
Meanwhile, supporters of the reforms believe that core subjects need to be developed. Thomas Brock, director of the Community College Research Center (CCRC) at Teachers College, Columbia University, described the high dropout rates and declining enrollment rates in the Tennessee study as “worrying.” But he says the old remediation system failed many students. (The Hechinger Report is an independent news organization, also based at Teachers College but not affiliated with the CCRC.)
“The answer is not to go back,” Brock said, “but to double down on priorities and give students more support,” acknowledging that some students need more time to build skills they don’t have. Brock believes this skill building can happen simultaneously as students earn college credits and not as a stepping stone. “No student comes to college to take remedial courses,” he added.
One confusing problem is that core classes come in many different forms. In some cases, students receive a double dose of math or English with three credit hours of a remedial class taken concurrently with three credit hours of a college-level course. The most common way is to take an extra hour or so in a college class. In his analysis, Ran found that instructional time was cut in half for weaker students, who received more hours of math or writing instruction under the old remedial system.
“In the new environment, everyone gets the same amount of education or development, whether you’re just one point below the cutoff or 10 points below the cutoff,” said Ran.
There is also a significant difference in what happens with additional support time built into the core course. Some colleges offer tutoring centers to help students fill their knowledge gaps. Others schedule computer lab time where students do math problems on educational software. Another option is extended class time, in which the main professor teaches the same material in the college level more slowly, spread over four hours per week instead of the usual three hours.
Overcoming weak foundational skills isn’t the only obstacle community college students face. The researchers I interviewed emphasized that these students struggle to juggle work and family responsibilities as well as their classes, and need additional support – academic counseling, career counseling and sometimes therapy and financial assistance. Without additional support, students are lost. This may explain why the benefits of early credit accumulation are fading and have not yet translated into higher graduation rates.
Even before the pandemic, most community college students arrived on campus without a solid foundation of regular classes with college credit and were directed to remedial or new core classes. High school success rates have has dropped significantly since 2020when the data in Ran’s study ends. “It’s not their fault,” said Ran. “It’s the K-12 system that has judged them.”
That’s why it’s more important now than ever to figure out how to help underprepared college students if we want to improve postsecondary education.
