Transforming remedial programs = Dramatic gains in student success

NATIONAL REPORTS HIGHLIGHT TBR COREQUISITE WORK

• Roughly 60% of students entering Tennessee Board of Regents institutions with math, reading and/or writing skills below what’s needed to successfully pass their courses or complete a degree.
   
• TBR community colleges and universities have reported dramatic success in helping students who place in developmental (remedial) education because they aren’t ready for college-level work. For students enrolled in college math alone, completion rates jumped from 12.3% to 51%. In writing, the pass rate jumped from 31% to 59%.
   
• The key to this dramatic success? TBR began enrolling students directly into the college-level course and providing extra learning support simultaneously to get the student up-to-speed while earning credit. The goal is to provide “corequisite” remediation so the student receives academic help at the same time, instead of the old “prerequisite” model that required students to pass a remedial class BEFORE she could enroll in a credit-bearing class.
   
• What’s more – the results are similar or even better for specific populations like minority students, adults, and low-income students. Students in the corequisite programs persist from semester-to-semester at a higher rate.  They earned more college credits overall than their counterparts. And early reports indicate they are more engaged as well, which leads to greater success overall.
   
• It’s not only a better way to approach student success, research indicates it’s a more cost-effective approach as well. A cost study report released April 5, 2016, indicates that the cost per successful graduate is dramatically less than the prerequisite model, even though schools bear the cost of increased enrollments, courses and faculty.
   
• TBR’s successful full-scale implementation of the corequisite program has become a national model. Here’s a list of reports and news coverage highlighting the program in Tennessee:
  • More college students are passing remedial classes thanks to a revamp by the Tennessee Board of Regents - Chattanooga Times Free Press
  • The ARCHITECTURE OF INNOVATION System-level Course Redesign in Tennessee - American Council on Education
  • What Happens When Colleges Start Treating Remedial Students Like Everybody Else - GoodCall Education News
  • Tennessee scaled corequisite remediation initiative a success - EducationDive
  • Evidence of Remediation Success  - InsideHigherEd.com report on studies supporting Tennessee’s success.
  • Community College Research Center at Columbia Teacher’s College report shows Tennessee’s co-requisite model to be more cost-effective than traditional remediation.
  • A report on “How to Fix Remediation at Scale” from the New America Foundation highlights Tennessee and other states looking at new ways to increase student success.
  • Complete College America’s report on Corequisite Remediation: Spanning the Completion Divide indicate surprising breakthroughs for student success in Tennessee and four other alliance states.
  • Progress on Remediation – InsideHigherEd.com article: New report from Complete College America gives a first look at how pairing additional resources with introductory college courses can help students who need remediation.
  • 'Corequisite remediation' promotes student success – Community College Daily
  • The ROI of corequisite remediation – Community College Daily
  • Pellissippi State sees success in new approach to remedial classes – Knoxville News Sentinel
  • College students making gains in corequisite remediation – Herald-Citizen
  • One State's Big Shift Away From Remedial Courses Leaves Questions for Colleges Everywhere – Chronicle of Higher Ed