New evidence on college remediation.

Most American colleges and universities offer special courses for students who lack some of the reading, writing, and mathematics skills that are critical for college-level work (Roueche & Roueche, 1999). This phenomenon is known popularly as remedial education, although many educators avoid that label, preferring terms such as developmental education, skills courses, or college preparation courses. Developmental or remedial education is widespread: Our analyses indicate that about 40% of traditional undergraduates take at least one such course, and remediation is even more common among older nontraditional students (Woodham, 1998).

Remedial coursework has become a politically contentious issue in the last decade or so (Kozeracki, 2002; Soliday, 2002). Some commentators view the existence of remedial or developmental courses as evidence that many of today's college students are not academically strong enough to manage college-level work and should not have been admitted into college in the first place (Harwood, 1997; Marcus, 2000; Trombley, 1998). From this perspective, the existence of remediation suggests that some institutions have lowered their standards for admission, and have subsequently "dumbed down" courses so that unprepared students can make their way through college (Bennett, 1994; MacDonald, 1997, 1998, 1999; Traub, 1995). Other critics argue that students get bogged down taking multiple remedial courses, leading many to give up and drop out. Remedial education, in this view, is a hoax perpetrated upon academically weak students who will be unlikely to graduate (Deil-Amen & Rosenbaum, 2002; Rosenbaum, 2001).

In recent years, such arguments have encouraged several states to remove developmental or remedial courses from their public four-year universities and to redirect students in need of remediation into community colleges (Bettinger & Long, 2004; Kozeracki, 2002; Soliday, 2002).

The opposite view maintains that developmental education is a necessary component of higher education, one with deep historical roots. Proponents note that many promising students combine strengths in certain subject areas with weaknesses in others, which can be addressed by skills courses. Moreover, many students enter college years after graduating high school and need to rebuild certain skills. Most importantly, proponents stress that most students who take remedial/developmental coursework subsequently complete their degrees successfully (McCabe, 2000; Merisotis & Phipps, 1998).

Supporters of college remediation draw attention to the fact that students of color, students from less affluent families, and students for whom English is a second language are greatly overrepresented in remedial courses. Consequently, policies that prevent students who need remedial/developmental work from enrolling in four-year colleges could greatly reduce the likelihood that such students would ever obtain bachelor's degrees (Lavin & Weininger, 1998). Supporters of developmental education therefore construe the controversy over remediation as an attack on access to college.

Although much has been written about this controversy, there are large gaps in the empirical record. One review noted, "Research about the effectiveness of remedial education programs has typically been sporadic, underfunded, and inconclusive" (Merisotis & Phipps, 2000, p. 75). Another added, "Unfortunately, while debates for and against have been vociferous, the effectiveness of these programs has not been visible as an issue. Relatively few evaluations of remedial programs have been conducted, and many existing evaluations are useless" (Grubb, 2001, p. 1).

Exactly what constitutes "college-level work" is by no means clear. Institutions differ on this, and there are different expectations even within single institutions. Consequently, there is no objective or generally agreed upon cut-off below which college students require remediation. Each college follows its own set of practices, and this leads to the considerable variability in remediation we document below.