Many higher education researchers and student-success advocates have long criticized no-credit remedial or developmental education in community colleges as a “trap” – an unintentional barrier to student success, particularly for its impact on low-income and minority students’ persistence and completion outcomes.
Because placement into remedial courses often relies on the use of a single placement test like the ACCUPLACER, colleges across the country are beginning to explore and implement multiple measures placement alternatives, transition to co-requisite models of remediation or eliminate developmental education all together.
The latter approach is one that administrators at Warren County Community College (WCCC) in New Jersey took in the last few years.
WCCC serves nearly 1,400 students and up to 2,000 through dual enrollment. After abolishing remedial education, the college saw its graduation rates double.
The “radical” action was a result of administrators and faculty keeping in mind that college officials have to step “out of what we’ve been doing and say, ‘What is actually right?’” said WCCC president Dr. William Austin.
“We throw committees at every single problem … but there is no real numerical research” showing that remediation works, Austin said in a presentation at the 99th Annual Convention of the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC).
Austin’s point is backed by growing research, including several studies by the Community College Research Center at Teachers College, Columbia University that found that many students placed into remedial courses are less likely to graduate than if they were placed in college-level courses from the start.
