In response to the large number of high school students entering community colleges in the United States who are not prepared to begin college-level mathematics courses, and the poor success rates of students enrolled in the traditional prerequisite developmental courses that have been required for such students for many years, national attention…

A significant number of students who enroll in community colleges are placed in remedial courses for which the credits do not count toward degree attainment. These remedial courses cost the same as first-year, credit-bearing college courses, and research indicates that students who enroll in these courses are less likely to finish their degree…

This report examines the success of students with lower levels of high school performance who began in transfer-level math as a result of Assembly Bill 705 (Irwin 2017). AB 705 is historic legislation that transformed placement and eventually ended developmental education in California's community colleges. Since community colleges are open access…

The California Community Colleges (CCC) began implementation of AB 705 in fall 2018, ensuring that most students started in transfer-level math rather than a developmental education sequence. The RP Group's Multiple Measures Assessment Project (MMAP) has found that for all student groups, dramatically increasing access to transfer-level math…

Historically, college students who require remediation in mathematics have been placed into developmental mathematics courses. Accurate placement is important for student success; inaccurate placement in a low-level course could lengthen a students' time to degree completion. Placement policies have tended to focus on a high-stakes placement test,…

Community colleges may face challenges supporting the unique needs of language minority (LM) students whose primary language is not English. Florida provides a unique context for examining whether LM students who are considered underprepared for college-level coursework benefit more from traditional developmental education programs in reading and…

Many states are redesigning their college remediation policies to increase postsecondary degree completion. In 2012, Tennessee began waiving college math remediation for high school students who completed a computer-based remedial math course (SAILS) during their senior year. Using a regression discontinuity design, we find that the high school…

One explanation for negative or null findings in prior research on postsecondary remediation is that college may be too late to address issues of academic underpreparedness. This study evaluates the impact on student outcomes when college math remediation is offered in the senior year of high school. The Seamless Alignment and Integrated Learning…

California Assembly Bill (AB) 705 authored by Irwin and passed on October 13, 2017, requires colleges to "maximize the probability that a student will enter and complete transfer-level coursework in English and math within a one-year timeframe" and use high school background data in placement processes. To implement this new law and…

This study explores the extent to which "college-ready" students, by high school standards, are assigned to remedial courses in college. We used a unique longitudinal data set that links high school and community college transcript data. Focusing on math, we developed a naming device--"inter-sector math misalignment" (ISMM)--to…

Few studies have examined the experiences of community college students who are or were in foster care. Consequently, relatively little is known about why young people in foster care choose to enroll in community college, what happens to those young people once they enroll, or whether they are receiving the supports they need to achieve their…

Objective: Standardized placement tests remain the primary means by which new community college students are assessed and placed in the hierarchy of math and English coursework. A growing body of evidence indicates that placement tests tend to underestimate students' likelihood of achieving passing grades in college-level courses, leading to…

In fulfillment of Ohio Revised Code section 3333.041 (A) (1), the Chancellor of the Ohio Department of Higher Education (ODHE) has published a listing by school district of the number of 2017 high school graduates who attended a state institution of higher education in the 2017-2018 academic year. The listing provides the percentage of each…

In fulfillment of Ohio Revised Code section 3333.041 (A) (1), the Chancellor of the Ohio Department of Higher Education (ODHE) has published a listing by school district of the number of 2018 high school graduates that attended a state institution of higher education in the 2018-2019 academic year. The listing provides the percentage of each…

Despite increases in college enrollment, college completion rates have not kept up, at both 2-year and 4-year institutions. In California specifically, the 6-year graduation or transfer rate for students at 2-year institutions was only 48%. In response to the idea that students arrive at college unprepared, driving these low college success rates,…