Complete College America’s latest report, Corequisite Remediation: Spanning the Divide – Breakthrough Results Fulfilling the Promise of College Access for Underprepared Students commends the West Virginia Community and Technical College System (WVCTCS) for their success in corequisite remediation.
“Approximately 64% of our community college students require some form of remediation. However, only 13% of those students graduated after 6 years. We knew that in order to fulfill our mission and help meet the workforce needs of West Virginia, we needed to make a significant change to the way we were teaching students who came to us unprepared for college,” said Chancellor Sarah Tucker.
In January 2014, WVCTCS issued a challenge to all community and technical colleges in West Virginia to fully scale corequisite reform by Fall 2014. Corequisite developmental education enrolls students in remedial and college level courses in the same subject at the same time. Students receive targeted support to help boost their understanding and learning of the college level course material.
Under the traditional model, only 37% of students completed a college level English course after 2 years. By Fall 2014, 68% of students completed college English in their first semester. Even better results were seen in Math. Previously, only 14% of students passed college Math after two years. In the fall 62% of students passed college math.
“In all of my years of doing research about higher education, I’ve never seen results like this. Never. These are huge changes that will make a difference to our students,” said Chancellor Tucker.
As the first-of-its kind, this interactive report shares the current state of traditional remediation and highlights the dramatic results from statewide efforts in Colorado, Georgia, Indiana, and Tennessee, and West Virginia. The full report is located here.
Complete College America is a national nonprofit with a single mission: to work with states to significantly increase the number of Americans with quality career certificates or college degrees and to close attainment gaps for traditionally underrepresented populations.
