Getting College Ready: The Impact of a Texas Summer Bridge Program on Developmental Students’ Success

• In Event: Roundtable Session 32
  In Roundtable Session: Instructional Interventions: Designs, Enactment, and Challenges

Abstract

Postsecondary trends indicate that a large number of underprepared students will enter college. The state of Texas has devised a set of innovative policy initiatives to improve educational outcomes within the state. This study rigorously assesses the effectiveness of the Texas summer bridge model in improving collegiate outcomes for students in need of remediation by employing student level randomization. Early outcomes suggest that the summer bridge had no effect on fall semester outcomes. In the spring semester, small differences did emerge in the types of credits students attempted (developmental v. college-level) and program group students were significantly more likely to both enroll in and pass college-level math, were more likely to enroll in college-level reading, and likely to pass college-level writing.

Authors

• Heather D. Wathington, University of Virginia

• Elisabeth Barnett, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Josh Pretlow, University of Cincinnati