Many U.S. students arrive on college campus lacking the skills expected for college-level work. As state leaders seek to increase postsecondary enrollment and completion, public colleges have sought to lessen the delays created by remedial course requirements. Tennessee has taken a novel approach by allowing students to complete their remediation requirements in high school. Using both a difference-in-differences and a regression discontinuity design, we evaluate the program's impact on college enrollment and credit accumulation, finding that the program boosted enrollment in college-level math during the first year of college and allowed students to earn a modest 4.5 additional college credits by their second year. We also report the first causal evidence on remediation's impact on students' math skills, finding that the program did not improve students' math achievement, nor boost students' chances of passing college math. Our findings cast doubt on the effectiveness of the current model of remediation-whether in high school or college-in improving students' math skills. They also suggest that the time cost of remediation-whether pre-requisite or co-requisite remediation-is not the primary barrier causing low degree completion for students with weak math preparation.
for their help explaining the context in Newark and accessing the New Jersey data. We thank staff at the Newark Public Schools for reviewing earlier drafts of the report for errors. Kirsten Slungaard Mumma helped analyze the data and Jon Fullerton managed the project. Although unrelated to the current project, we disclose the following interests: Kane served as an expert witness for Gibson, Dunn, and Crutcher LLP to testify in Vergara v. California. Staiger is co-founder, has an equity interest in, and consults for ArborMetrix, a company that sells performance measurement systems and consulting services to healthcare providers. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peer-reviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.
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 remedial course did not improve students' math achievement any more than the typical senior year math course (although it
did allow students to avoid the cost and delay of remedial math in college). Using a difference‐in‐difference design, we find that completing SAILS boosted enrollment in college‐level math among first‐year community college students by nearly 30 percentage points, with nearly half of new enrollees passing the college‐level course. Such students had, however, only completed 1.5 additional college courses after two years. In 2015, Tennessee community colleges implemented “co‐requisite” remediation, allowing students to complete remediation alongside college‐level math. Under the co‐requisite policy, completing SAILS no longer produced any boost in college credits. Although both alternatives to pre‐requisite remediation produced modest gains for students and taxpayers, remediation requirements are not a primary driver of low degree completion rates.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.