Cost-Effectiveness of Co-Requisite Developmental Education: Evidence From a Statewide Reform in Texas

• In Event: Higher Education Costs, Finances, and Opportunity

Abstract

Texas passed legislation through House Bill 2223 in 2017 which sought to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of developmental education through the use of a corequisite model in which students enroll in a developmental course and a college-level course in the same subject area during a single semester. This paper uses an economic model of remediation to examine how changes in college coursetaking before and after the reform altered costs to students and institutions, and overall cost effectiveness. We find that the reform resulted in efficiency gains of 10% in English and 12% in math, which provides promising evidence that corequisite reform may be an effective mechanism for reducing costs to students and institutions.

Authors

• Christine Mokher, Florida State University

• Toby Park-Gaghan, Florida State University