Resources

This study from the CALDER Center examines the short-, medium-, and long-term effects of remedial courses in middle school using a regression discontinuity design. While the short-term test score benefits of taking a remedial course in English language arts in middle school fade quickly, the study found significant positive effects on the likelihood of taking college credit-bearing courses in high school, college enrollment, enrolling in more selective colleges, persistence in college, and degree attainment.

In this journal article, researchers examine whether, how, and for whom a new counseling model aimed at providing college-related social resources may improve college enrollment. Following nearly all seniors in Chicago Public Schools from their senior year through the fall after high school, the findings indicate that coaches may improve the types of colleges that students attend by getting students to complete key actions.

This report highlights survey and focus group findings from AIR’s investigation of the usefulness of the Future Focused TX platform to counselors in North Texas and the potential use of the Future Focused TX platform and its resources in out-of-school time (OST) programs in North Texas.

This journal article discusses a study evaluating the effectiveness of math placement policies for entering community college students on these students' academic success in math. Researchers estimate the impact of placement decisions by using a discrete-time survival model within a regression discontinuity framework. The primary conclusion that emerges is that initial placement in a lower level course increases the time until a student at the margin completes the higher level course they were not assigned to by about a year on average, but in most cases, after this time period, the penalty was small and not statistically significant.

This study examined Washington's College Bound Scholarship program and how it affected college entry, persistence, and completion. The study found that the scholarship program shifted enrollment from out-of-state to in-state colleges at which the scholarship could be used.

This journal article discusses findings from a study that used a randomized controlled trial to assess the impact of Early College High Schools on students’ high school graduation, college enrollment, and college degree attainment, as well as students’ high school experiences using extant data and survey data. The findings indicate that Early Colleges had positive impacts on college enrollment and college completion as well as students’ high school experiences.

This report identifies type of high school enrollment (e.g., traditional public schools, charter schools, and private voucher schools) for Indiana students enrolled in grade 9 in 2010/11–2013/14 and examines their performance on indicators of college and career readiness and early college success.

One common approach to helping students who have been assessed as needing developmental education is corequisite remediation, where students enroll directly in college-level courses while receiving concurrent and aligned developmental educational support. There are numerous corequisite education models (for example, paired courses or tutoring), each designed to support students in passing college-level courses while avoiding the delays associated with prerequisite developmental courses. This brief from MDRC describes lessons from the emerging research examining the effects of corequisite education.

This journal article uses student-level data to investigate how the college application behavior of underrepresented minorities (URMs) changed in response to the 1998 end of affirmative action in admissions at the University of California (UC). The results show that all URMs experienced a drop in their probability of admission to at least one UC campus.

This blog post uses newly released provisional data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System’s (IPEDS) Fall Enrollment (EF) survey to provide an updated look at whether beginning college students are attending school in their home state or heading elsewhere.