Assessing the Heterogeneous Effects of Remedial Education

We analyze the effect of remedial math education on student outcomes by use of data from a large US public university and a regression discontinuity approach. Students with different math preparation levels are placed in remedial courses of varying difficulty. Our study finds that remediation increases graduation rates by 22.5 percentage points for students with lower math skills in math-intensive majors. However, students with stronger math backgrounds in advanced remedial classes do not see improved graduation outcomes. Additionally, implementation of an adaptive learning remedial program increased passing rates by 9.5 percentage points, leading to a 4.5 percentage point rise in 5-year graduation probability.