Every year millions of young adults stride onto their local community college campus with aspirations of obtaining a college degree. But even though most of those new enrollees graduated from high school, nearly 60 percent will have to take a remedial class before earning college credit.
For most students, these remedial classes are an educational dead end. Studies have shown that three out of every four students who take remedial classes will not graduate within eight years, compared to 40 percent of students not required to take remedial courses.
Despite these troubling outcomes, it is estimated community colleges continue to spend $2 billion a year on remediation strategies that just aren’t working. Millions of students who desperately need our best efforts are being shuttled into poorly resourced, poorly designed, and poorly taught courses with little to no support. Worse yet, these programs are considered low status academic pursuits and have been turned over to adjunct faculty with weak connections to the college.
Instead of marginalizing remedial programs we must make them a priority and apply innovative approaches to dramatically improve student success rates.
The foundation has so far committed $100 million to dramatically improve the effectiveness of remedial programs so more Americans can obtain the degrees necessary to land good jobs and keep our economy strong.
To that end, we’ve invested more than $16 million in Achieving the Dream to identify and support the most promising work in remedial education being done by 15 community colleges and five states participating in the Achieving the Dream initiative. These include expanding access to summer bridge programs and student success courses. Partner organizations will collect and analyze student data, develop innovative programs, and create a network to share what they’ve learned.
We’ve invested $1.75 million to expand Washington state’s successful I-BEST program which combines basic academic courses and career skills classes to put their learning in a useful context and ensure that the least-prepared students not only complete college, but are competitive in the workforce upon graduation. Program evaluations suggest that I-BEST students are almost four times more likely to earn a credential or degree than similar students who were not enrolled in the program.
The nationally-acclaimed Gateway to College program received $7.28 million from the foundation to expand into 15 community colleges. Gateway to College serves 16- to 20-year-old students who have dropped out of high school or are at risk of dropping out. It puts them on a track to complete their high school diploma while simultaneously earning credits toward an associate degree or certificate at local community and technical colleges.
The Academy for College Excellence at Cabrillo Community College is using a $2.7 million foundation investment to expand into four colleges. The program is designed to bridge the gap in education for young adults who are not typically encouraged to aim for college. Since its founding in 2002, the Academy for College Excellence has transitioned more than 675 at-risk students into Cabrillo College’s regular college courses.
A new kind of community college is being built at the City University of New York. It will include intensive pre-college support to prepare students for the college experience; a merging of remedial and credit coursework to help students maintain momentum through their course of study; and focused course options that carefully guide students toward graduation and employment.
These programs represent the kind of bold leadership and creative ideas necessary to transform remedial coursework from a stumbling block for too many students into a starting block for launching successful careers.