Giving Compass' Take:

• Mikhail Zinshteyn reports that a study found that "corequisite courses" can successfully fill the role that remedial education has historically attempted and failed to fill. 

• How can funders help schools effectively support students in need of additional help? How can existing programs be expanded and altered to fit the needs of students? 

• Learn about the failings of some remedial education efforts


A first-of-its-kind study found mixed evidence that a type of reform meant to improve the odds that college students graduate is truly effective.

The researchers homed in on corequisite courses, an instructional model that allows students to skip remedial math and English courses and instead take college-level, or gateway, classes with additional instructional support.

The analysis, conducted by Florence Xiaotao Ran of the Community College Research Center at Columbia University and Yuxin Lin of the University of Southern California, studied eight years of student records at the 13 community colleges under the Tennessee Board of Regents, which in 2015 was the first state collection of higher-education institutions to have corequisite classes systemwide.

“I think the biggest takeaway from this report is that we found very robust evidence that corequisites can improve your outcome in gateway courses,” Ran said. “But it seems that it’s not sufficient enough to improve the overall completion” of students pursuing degrees or wanting to transfer to four-year institutions, the common goals of community college students.

The rationale behind the corequisite model in lieu of traditional remedial courses is that it allows more students to pass their first college-level math and English courses that are crucial to moving along in one’s academic career. Remedial courses, which essentially repeat high school content that students had already learned, have been faulted for dooming the college hopes of legions of students. As many as 70 percent of college students are told they need to take a remedial course, often because they scored too low on a standardized test that colleges require students to take. Few students placed in remedial courses actually end up reaching their gateway courses and are often required to take several remedial classes as part of a series, leading to higher costs and student attrition.

Read the full article about remedial education that works by Mikhail Zinshteyn at The 74.