By Kri Burkander
Overview
Many community colleges across the U.S. have established developmental education courses (DE) as a way to help incoming students meet readiness standards for college-level math and English courses. While DE courses were designed to help students strengthen their academic preparedness, research indicates that DE requirements are more often an obstacle to degree completion.
In California, which has the largest and most diverse community college system in the U.S., legislators passed two reforms designed to improve student outcomes in math and English across various demographic groups: Assembly Bills (AB) 705 and 1705. AB focuses on equity in access through requiring multiple measures placement and AB 1705 eliminates all DE coursework and streamlines pathways for STEM students.
Beginning in 2021, Research for Action (RFA), in partnership with Lauren Schudde at the University of Texas at Austin, and with funding from the Institute of Education Sciences, conducted a five-year study of the impact, cost, and implementation of these two policies. In this blog series, we will focus on each of these three areas, with the aim of:
- Providing policymakers and community college administrators and faculty with actionable learnings about the role of developmental education reform in promoting student success in community college;
- Offering implications of the California experience for other states that have or may consider similar reforms; and
- Elevating lessons about developmental education reform to funders who have supported or are considering supporting initiatives on this topic.
In this post we draw from our research to explore the cost effectiveness of the policies. We focused on the three most prominent cocurricular support models implemented in the context of AB 705—embedded tutors, enhanced courses, and corequisite-paired courses—and explore how these models compare in terms of costs and student outcomes.
What Did We Learn?
In studying the cost effectiveness of AB 705, we had two main questions:
- What is the cost-effectiveness of transfer-level placement programs, with and without cocurricular student supports, relative to business-as-usual developmental education programs?
- How do additional costs and effectiveness differ across common cocurricular support models—embedded tutoring, enhanced sections, and corequisites—compared with standalone transfer-level courses?
To assess the cost effectiveness of the DE initiatives within AB 705, and address these research questions, we drew from cost data collected from 11 California community colleges sampled for in- depth fieldwork in 2022-23. We also applied the Ingredient Cost Method, developed by Levin et al. (2018) to identify costs borne by institutions and students across two categories: implementation support for faculty, and course and student support. In addition, we drew on data from the Chancellor’s Office Management Information Systems and findings from surveys of community college departments and faculty. Because developmental education had largely been replaced by the time of our fieldwork, the developmental education costs used in the analysis are benchmark estimates drawn from earlier studies rather than directly observed contemporary California costs.
Here are the highlights of what we learned:
What is the cost-effectiveness of transfer-level placement programs, with and without cocurricular student supports, relative to business-as-usual developmental education programs?
Transfer-level placement is substantially less costly than prerequisite developmental education, which suggests that transfer-level placement may reduce institutional expenditure and student costs while preserving accessibility to students. For instance, in 2019 dollars, the total cost per student is approximately $180 for math and $163 for English under the transfer-level placement model, compared to $1,521 for math and $1,452 for English in the business-as-usual developmental education model.
It is important to note, however, two limitations with this cost-effectiveness research. First, these DE programs differ among community colleges, with variation in levels of implementation readiness, duration, level, and in how data are collected and outcomes are measured. Second, the transfer-level placement costs do not include general overhead expenses and societal costs.
How do additional costs and effectiveness differ across common cocurricular support models—embedded tutoring, enhanced sections, and corequisites—compared with standalone transfer-level courses?
Transfer-level courses with cocurricular supports are more costly to implement than standalone transfer-level courses. We saw no detectable differences in one-year course completion rates between students who enroll in transfer-level courses with and without these three types of cocurricular supports. One exception, however, is embedded tutoring—by itself or in combination with a corequisite— which showed a modest positive association with math completion.
Importantly, these findings do not suggest that colleges should refrain from implementing cocurricular supports. Our qualitative research has demonstrated that implementing these supports varies wildly at California community colleges. We also recognize that many faculty have changed their pedagogical approaches in standalone courses in response to the reform. These two factors make it difficult to detect an effect of cocurricular supports. Given this context, we recommend additional research to explore this concept with experimental designs that implement cocurricular supports more consistently and hold constant the standalone approach.
Implications for Future Developmental Education Reform
Based on our experience estimating the cost effectiveness of these reforms, we’d like to offer several implications for various stakeholders, including policymakers in other contexts and funders (e.g., foundations) considering investments in developmental education policy reforms and building evidence to improve developmental education reform.
For policymakers:
- Minimize DE pathways and invest in supports like corequisites to promote student success. This study provides evidence that transfer-level placement can be substantially less costly than prerequisite DE—and aligns with a broader body of evidence indicating that students are more likely to succeed when placed directly into college-level coursework rather than DE.
- Consider expanding existing funding to support and sustain embedded tutoring models. These models were widely embraced throughout California community colleges, lauded by faculty and students for making support more accessible. Our analyses suggest that embedded tutoring may be associated with modest gains in math completion, thus making this model a promising area for continued investment and evaluation.
For funders:
- Systematically examine cocurricular support models to better understand their effectiveness. While many states and systems are exploring various approaches to acceleration and DE reform, there is a persistent lack of experimental evidence directly comparing cocurricular support models. Implementation of these approaches varies widely, and this variation impacts student outcomes.
Coming Next
In our final piece in this series, we will focus on key findings from the implementation study. In the meantime, we invite you to visit the RFA website to access our first blog, focusing on impact, as well as several publications about this initiative and learn more about the research process and the findings discussed here. You are also welcome to reach out for a conversation about the impact study; we’d love to hear policymaker and funder perspectives on developmental education reform.
Kri Burkander is a Senior Research Associate at Research for Action