Accelerated Success? The Impact of Florida's Developmental Education Reform on Gateway Course Completion

• In Event: 64.045 - Examining the Efficiency of Higher Education Policy

Abstract

Florida’s Senate Bill 1720 allows many students to enroll directly in gateway courses and requires colleges to provide optional developmental education courses using new modalities which may be completed more quickly than traditional courses. We use an interrupted time series design to examine gateway (introductory college-level courses) passing rates in English and math for three cohorts of college students pre-reform and three cohorts post-reform. We find that cohorts after the reform are more likely to pass gateway courses in their first year of college, indicating that the reform may help to accelerate student success in college. Further, we find that Black and Hispanic students experience even greater gains in passing rates than White students.

Authors

• Toby Park, Florida State University

• Christine Mokher, Florida State University

• Xinye Hu, The Florida State University

• Hayley Spencer, Florida State University

• Shouping Hu, Florida State University