Remedial Education

past their remedial courses to take credit-bearing courses. 25 This national statistic
mirrors what is happening within states. In Texas, for example, only 50 percent
of the 2010 cohort of community college students who received remediation in
reading completed their remedial courses. (see Table 4) Of that 50 percent, only
37 percent completed their first college-level course. In math, only 33 percent of
Texas students who enrolled in a remedial math course successfully completed the
course, and of this group, only 18 percent went on to complete their first collegelevel
course. 26 Ultimately, students who enroll in remedial courses are far less
likely to complete college than their peers who do not need remediation.
The National Conference of State Legislatures estimates that less than 25 percent
of students who need to take remedial courses in community college complete
their academic programs within eight years. 27 Other figures show that less than 10
percent of students who are placed in remedial education complete a degree—
whether two-year or four-year—on time. 28
FIGURE 1
Percent of students in remedial courses who complete gateway courses
Two-year colleges
Four-year colleges
Passed remedial education courses
20%
36%
Successfully complete subject-specific
gateway course within two years
22% Math
22% English
Source: Complete College America, "Spanning the Divide," available at
http://completecollege.org/spanningthedivide/#far-too-many-students-start-in-remediation (last accessed July 2016).
Figure 1 shows that fewer students successfully complete each successive level of
progression in and through remedial education. The trends are worse for so-called
gateway courses, or foundational courses in mathematics and writing that introduce
students to the analytical thinking and early research methodology that are
key to pursuing a degree major.
13 Center for American Progress | Remedial Education