In the past decade, a variety of political and economic issues have contributed to changing the landscape of American higher education. Among these issues is a shortfall of college educated laborers for the workforce, the increasing costs of college attendance, and the subsequent expansion of student debt. State politicians and decision makers…

As an instructor of the developmental reading and writing course at Texas State University, Barrie McGee is required per state mandate to design a course as an accelerated version of an integrated reading and writing (IRW) course. Furthermore, she is uniquely positioned as a student enrolled in the program in developmental education to access…

In May 2013, the governor of Florida signed into law Senate Bill 1720, which fundamentally changed how institutions of higher education manage remedial programs. Institutions seemed to be responding to the high demand for education by channeling large percentages of incoming first-year students to remedial classes based on assessment test scores,…

Colleges and postsecondary systems across the nation have demonstrated remarkable progress since "Core Principles for Transforming Remediation" was published in 2012. States and institutions are phasing out stand alone or multi-course remediation sequences, resulting in tens of thousands of students more quickly enrolling in and…

Since Breneman and Haarlow (1998) first estimated the national cost of developmental education to be approximately $1 billion dollars, the developmental education landscape has shifted in numerous ways. This paper provides an update to their estimate in light of both these changes and improved data that disaggregates the cost to community colleges…

In March, 2016, the state of New Mexico established a Remediation Task Force to examine remediation reform efforts across the state's higher education institutions. On March 11, the Task Force met for the "New Mexico Corequisite Remediation at Scale Policy Institute" in order to learn about the results of the latest national reform…

This report, issued by the Connecticut Department of Higher Education, reports on trends in higher education for the year 2011. Six goals are presented, each with at least two indicators. Each indicator is broken down into the following subsections: About This Indicator; Highlights; and In the Future. Most indicators also include statistical…

Developmental education, also termed remedial education, refers to curricula intended to improve the academic skills and knowledge of students who are underprepared for undergraduate coursework, particularly in the areas of mathematics, reading, and writing. Many practitioners and researchers agree that developmental education should be improved,…

A significant challenge in higher education is to narrow the educational attainment gap between academically prepared and unprepared students. To this end, developmental or remedial education is intended to improve the academic skills and knowledge of students who are unprepared for undergraduate coursework, particularly in the areas of…

This article discusses the successful use of technology, rather than lectures, by Tennessee's community colleges to teach developmental reading and math. The redesign occurred with the support of the National Center for Academic Transformation (NCAT). In fall 2007, the Tennessee Board of Regents (TBR) staff convened meetings to familiarize its…

This paper summarizes themes arising from a symposium on the future of developmental education in the United States. In recent years, public financial support of developmental education has been declining and is projected to decline further. Participants in a symposium on developmental education agreed on some trends that are emerging.…

A pilot project was developed to examine how changing governmental policies designed to reduce or eliminate developmental education have been affecting the organization and delivery of developmental instruction, admissions practices, and other institutional decisions and processes in the New England states. The pilot project does not evaluate New…

This conference was called to discuss the need for, and the strategies used in, implementing basic skills remediation at the college and university level. All levels of higher education were represented, as well as research professors, elementary, secondary, and post-secondary school administrators and teachers, representatives of the business and…

The ability to use language as a means of thought expression is a growth process. It is necessary, therefore, for college-level developmental courses to concentrate on strengths stemming from the student's communication in an informal environment, rather than on skill deficiencies reflected in test scores. To achieve this, the teacher must know…

The State Council of Higher Education for Virginia examined the status of remediation in higher education in the state using a population of first-time college students who graduated from a high school in Virginia, attended a Virginia college, and took at least one remedial course at a community college or private college. Over the last 5 years,…