Remedial education gets big overhaul in US

Times Higher Education

Paul Basken

March 27, 2024

US colleges and universities are rapidly embracing the idea of eliminating distinct remedial tracks for incoming students, finding that ability gaps resulting from insufficient high school preparation can be addressed much more effectively when integrated with first-year coursework.

In one of the more startling indicators, several US states are reporting that their shares of students passing gateway mathematics courses shot up from 20 per cent or below to more than 60 per cent after they adopted the co-requisite remediation model, with graduation rates also rising.

With such outcomes becoming clear, the percentage of US public two-year colleges now offering co-requisite remediation has jumped over the past seven years, from 28 per cent to 77 per cent in maths, and from 56 per cent to 78 per cent in English, according to recent data from the Center for the Analysis of Postsecondary Readiness at Columbia University’s Teachers College.

“These are huge shifts,” especially given the usual slow pace of change in higher education, said Alexandra Logue, a research professor in the Center for Advanced Study in Education at the City University of New York.

“It’s almost hard to believe” the difference for students who undertake co-requisite remediation, said Elizabeth Cox Brand, the executive director of the Oregon Student Success Center, a unit of the Oregon Community College Association, whose members recently began trying the strategy.

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