Remedial Education Reform in California and Community College Student Outcomes

Abstract The efficacy of remedial education has long been debated, leading to comprehensive, structural reform nationwide. Between 2013 and 2017, California passed various remedial education reforms, first changing the methodology of remedial education placement, and later effectively removing remedial education mandates altogether. The latter reforms increased direct access to transfer-level courses, allowing students to bypass remedial education requirements. I exploit the timing of these reforms to explore how students, at different levels of college readiness, progress in community college without completing remedial education. Focusing on newly-graduated high school students, I find that after increasing direct access to transfer-level courses, students at all academic levels were more likely to enroll and pass transfer-level English and math at similar rates before any policy reform, except for students considered to be the least academically prepared. These results, along with observed declines in average GPA and persistence to the next year, suggest that, despite short-run benefits, there is still space for additional academic support and policies to help improve long-run college completion rates.