The Impact of Corequisite Math on Community College Student Outcomes: Evidence from Texas

Developmental education (dev-ed) aims to help students acquire knowledge and skills necessary to succeed in college-level coursework, but the traditional prerequisite approach to dev-ed—where students take courses that do not count toward a credential—appears to stymie progress toward a degree. Corequisite remediation is a structural reform that places students directly into a college-level course in the same term they receive dev-ed support. Using state administrative data from Texas community colleges and a regression discontinuity design, we examine whether taking corequisite math improves student success compared with traditional prerequisite dev-ed. We find that corequisite math quickly improves student completion of math requirements without any obvious drawbacks. Although additional follow-up may be necessary to understand long-term effects (given generally low degree attainment in the current follow-up window), we find that students in corequisite math were not substantially closer to degree completion than their peers in traditional dev-ed within 3 years.