Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Underprepared students at community colleges are often assigned to a sequence of developmental education courses that can substantially delay, or even halt, their progress to degree completion. Given the potential harm these courses pose to students and their tremendous cost, a number of states have been implementing reform measures regarding how developmental education is taught and who is required to take it. In 2014, Florida took the most drastic step forward when it implemented a comprehensive reform that allowed the majority of incoming students to enroll directly into college-level courses, while remaining developmental education courses were offered in new instructional modalities that were designed to be completed more quickly than traditional semester-long courses. In addition, colleges were required to provide additional academic support services more tailed to students’ needs as they accelerate at a faster pace through their coursework.

Using data from the population of students at Florida College System (FCS) institutions from 2011 to 2016, we conducted a series of comparative interrupted time series analyses to examine the impact of the reform on gateway course completion in the first year of college, as well as credits attempted and earned in the first and third years. More specifically, we examined whether there was heterogeneity in the reform’s impacts based on students’ level of academic preparation in high school math and English. These models include interaction terms between the post-reform indicator and dichotomous variables for whether the student completed a basic or advanced coursetaking track in high school math or English, relative to the omitted group of students who completed a standard track in the corresponding subject area.

Our findings show large, positive base effects of the reform for all students with respect to gateway course completion and credits accumulation. Further, we find heterogeneous effects by high school academic preparation. More specifically, and perhaps unsurprisingly, students on the advanced track in both English and math had greater gains in gateway course completion and credits earned, relative to students on the standard track. However, we also find that students in the basic track also have greater gains relative to students on the standard track. These findings suggest that when the rules are changed for how developmental education is taught and who is required to take it, that all students benefit, with even greater gains for students with both higher and lower levels of high school academic preparation.