New Evidence on Students With Low Placement Scores and Corequisite Courses

Some of the biggest impacts from a decade-plus of developmental education reform have been seen when students can skip prerequisite developmental courses and start directly in college-level math and English. But there are still questions about whether students with the lowest placement scores are getting enough help from corequisite courses that provide extra instruction to help them pass their gateway courses.

Florence Xiaotao Ran, a professor of higher education policy at the University of Delaware and a CCRC affiliate, published a paper in March 2024 with Hojung Lee, a doctoral student at the university, that explored the effect of corequisite courses on Tennessee community college students with different levels of academic preparation, as measured by scores on the ACT and other 11th-grade standardized tests. Ran found that gateway course completion increased by more than 20 percentage points overall, and students across the entire placement test score distribution, including those farthest away from the college readiness threshold, completed gateway and subsequent college-level courses at higher rates. But the analysis also found that students with the lowest math scores were more likely to drop out of college than similar students in prerequisite courses. Ran sat down with CAPR’s Elizabeth Ganga to discuss her findings.

This interview was condensed and edited for clarity.

What was the goal of your study?

In this research, we wanted to look at the effect on students’ outcomes of corequisite support compared to the traditional prerequisite approach—including the gateway completion rate and some of the more downstream outcomes for students—across the entire placement test score distribution, including those who are far away from the college readiness threshold.

What do you think caused the big jump in completion rates? Was it just because they got a chance to take the course?

We need to look at math and English separately because the positive impact on gateway English completion is actually strongest for students with the lowest placement test scores. I think there are a few reasons for that. One is that corequisites provided direct access to college-level English right when students arrived on campus. And the effect was strongest for students with the lowest test scores because, under the traditional prerequisite model, they had to go through a really long developmental sequence and the acceleration effect of corequisites is the strongest for them.

But for math, the story is a little bit more complicated. We see an overall positive impact on gateway math completion rates, and the positive effect is strongest for students with higher placement test scores in math. But, while we still see improvements in gateway math completion for students who need the most intensive developmental support, the positive effect is not as strong. Some of the students in that group can still finish gateway math with concurrent support, so it’s positive for them. But a larger proportion of students with lowest standardized test scores were not able to pass the gateway math course, even with the concurrent support. So, I think what we want to find out is how to support these students when they struggle.

And maybe the highest scoring slice of remedial students in math are really just underplaced.

Yes, that’s the other thing, because the study was conducted when the Tennessee colleges were still using standardized test scores, primarily ACT, as the sole placement criteria for development education. (They are now incorporating multiple measures.) Some of the students who were placed into corequisites could have succeeded in gateway math and English, even without corequisite support. For them, maybe the best thing is to just get them into gateway courses without any of the remediation, and then the colleges can save the resources to provide more targeted corequisite support for students who are truly in need of developmental support.

How do you interpret the finding that students earned the same number of college-level credits but took fewer courses? That seems like really good news.

That’s another important finding from the study. After the reform, overall, students are completing a similar level of college-level credits, but they are enrolling in fewer courses altogether. The difference is that they enrolled in fewer developmental courses, which do not apply to a college degree or credential. And I think that’s a positive result because what we care about is that students accumulate enough college-level credits that can be applied to a degree or credential. If they can do that by enrolling in fewer courses and save resources and financial aid money and their time, it’s a more efficient way of accumulating college-level courses.

I guess that’s partly why it’s confusing that corequisites didn’t increase the rate that students earn credentials, because you would think both the acceleration and more efficiently earning college credits would have some effect downstream. Are there too many other obstacles?

Yeah, I think the null effect on the persistence rate and credential completion is really in line with the current evidence in the field. Most of the evidence on corequisites is that they improve the initial completion rate of gateway courses, but this positive effect has not translated into a higher credential completion rate. One factor is that corequisites are one section of learning support ranging from one credit to three credits, and it’s done once students move on from the gateway courses. But it seems that students could need continued academic support, even after they complete gateway courses. Also, in community colleges, students are facing other challenges outside of the classroom. Corequisites or developmental support is a really small piece of the puzzle. It’s probably not that reasonable to expect a reform only targeting academic preparation to move the needle on completion. It typically takes an intervention that targets a few different dimensions of challenges students face, like the CUNY ASAP model, to lead to more positive long-term completion outcomes.

What about the dropout rate change that you saw? Do you have a sense of what’s going on there?

This actually surprised me when I initially did the analysis. Just based on the administrative data, we don’t really have a definitive answer for what caused it. Negative effects on enrollment persistence are not uncommon in developmental education research. As for this specific research context, what I’m going to say now is mostly speculation, but I think when some of the students in the lowest placement test score group take gateway courses and they struggle, that could send a signal: “Maybe this is not for me, or maybe this is too challenging for me.” And when students experience those struggles when they get to college, that could give them the impression, “Okay, maybe I need to explore other options.” So, when you have a corequisite model that mainstreams everyone into college-level courses regardless of their prior preparation, you also want to think about what kind of help will be necessary for students who need support in developing academic literacy such as basic math skills and reading comprehension to make sure that they still feel that they belong in this environment.

Do you think there’s an argument for a different system for that lowest placing group?

I don’t think people should use the study to say we should go back to prerequisites for the students with the lowest placement test scores, because we have tons of evidence showing that prerequisite remediation didn’t work for them either. I would interpret the result to say corequisites shouldn’t look the same for all students. Now that colleges are moving to do multiple measures, they can take a look at students’ high school GPA and what kind of math they took in high school and use that information to design corequisite learning support sections that are more targeted based on students’ prior preparation.

There is no one magic model that will solve the problem for everyone. The colleges need to invest their resources to provide more tailored support for students to really help them succeed.