The Effects of Compulsory Remediation on Persistence and Time to Baccalaureate Degree

• In Event: Understanding Student Loan Default and the Impact of Compulsory Remediation

Abstract

Postsecondary remedial or developmental education policies seek to promote baccalaureate attainment among academically under prepared college students. Capitalizing on remedial course assignment policies, we apply a regression discontinuity design to administrative data for seven cohorts of first-time first-year students who entered a single, large campus in the California State University system, Sacramento State University, between 1997 and 2003. With data through the 2007-08 academic year we are able to observe students’ persistence and on-time graduation for all of these entrants; given the distribution of times to degree we are able to observe final graduation status for most of them. We find virtually no effect of postsecondary remediation in either math or English on degree attainment or time to degree.

Authors

• Eric Grodsky, University of Wisconsin

• Michal Kurlaender, University of California - Davis

• Jessica S. Howell, University of Virginia