A new report released today by Complete College America (CCA) highlights the impressive success of an alternative to traditional remedial education being used by the University System of Georgia (USG). The report analyzes the outcomes of 26,000 USG students enrolled in corequisite support, an increasingly popular model that’s replacing traditional remedial coursework at colleges across the nation.
This year at least a million students entering college will be forced to take one or more prerequisite remedial courses in math or English - sometimes both - because they scored too low on standardized entrance or placement exams. Nationally, over half of entering community college students will be told by their institutions they’re not ready for college-level math and English courses, and those numbers will be significantly higher for Black and Latinx students.
Instead of registering for a credit-bearing course, these students will be placed in prerequisite remedial courses, non-credit classes intended to help students with weak academic backgrounds get up to speed so they can succeed in credit-bearing courses and ultimately earn a degree.
An academic hurdle that students deemed not “college ready” must clear, remedial courses must be completed before these students can enroll in an institution’s required “gateway” courses in those subjects. Although remedial courses will not count toward graduation, students will have to pay tuition for them nonetheless.
As well-intentioned as they may be, remedial courses are largely unsuccessful. They are what I have called higher education’s Hotel California; millions of students enter but they never leave. Among students in remedial courses, a significant percentage never finish even one of them. And very few students who start in remediation ever complete the associated gateway course. Too often, remediation is simply a funnel to failure.
How many remedial students make it to the graduation finish line? The answer is dismaying. An early CCA study showed that only 10% of students in remediation at two-year schools finish their degree in three years; at four-year non-flagship universities, 35% of students who must take a remedial class earned a degree after six years. The results are even worse for minority and low-income students.
The Corequisite Approach
But there is a solution at hand. CCA, an alliance of more than 40 states whose governors and education leaders have committed to make college completion a priority, has, in cooperation with several states, developed an alternative called corequisite support. Research shows that this model can triple the percentage of students who successfully complete gateway math courses and significantly increase the percentage who complete gateway English courses.
In addition, with a corequisite approach, Black and Latinx students pass their college-level math and English courses near or above the pass rate for all students, effectively closing the institutional performance gaps that existed prior to introducing corequisite support.
Here’s how corequisite support works. Instead of registering for a remedial course, students enroll in gateway courses immediately. But they are not left to sink or swim. They receive additional, just-in-time assistance and support simultaneous with the course itself.
That assistance can take various forms. For example, in the USG model, corequisite students are required to attend a corequisite support course that includes one to three contact hours per week and is offered alongside the associated college-level course. The support course is designed specifically to help students master the skills and knowledge required for success in the accompanying college-level course.
After introducing corequisite support statewide in 2018-19, USG has now offered the approach to more than 26,000 students attending the 26 institutions in the system. They include small, medium, and large colleges; open access and highly selective schools; community colleges; research universities; Historically Black Colleges and Universities; and Hispanic-Serving Institutions.
The Outcomes
The results? Using the traditional sequence of remedial courses that’s typified developmental education in the past, only 20% of USG students were able to pass a gateway course in math. With corequisite education the percentage of math gateway completes soared to 66%.
The results are similar with English. Only 45% of those taking remedial courses in English ultimately were able to pass a gateway English course, but with the corequisite approach, the success rate jumped to 69%.
While USG found that students in all different variations of corequisite support had higher success rates than traditional remediation, it also found that participants - especially Black and Latinx students - received the most benefit from having the same instructor for both the corequisite support and college-level courses and at least two contact hours per week for the corequisite course.
Calling the results from USG “ remarkable,” CCA President Yolanda Watson Spiva, said. “All groups of students, including Black and Latinx students, students experiencing poverty, and first-generation college students, are passing gateway courses at the same rates. We are ecstatic about the results of this research and look forward to implementing additional strategies to benefit these groups of students, with USG and others.”
As the evidence for the effectiveness of corequisite approaches accumulates, two implications must be considered. First, states and institutions that are not using corequisite methods now bear the burden of showing why they cling to traditional remediation given the body of research that shows how much better the performance of students is under corequisite models.
And second, as with an educational policy, corequisite instruction comes in many shapes and forms, varying in intensity, class composition and additional student support services. Its impact is also enhanced when it’s surrounded by other practices that increase students’ confidence and determination to succeed in college. It will be up to institutions to evaluate which combination of these practices works best for their students and then bring those measures to scale.
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