Isaac McFarlin

Help or Hindrance? The Effects of College Remediation on Academic and Labor Market Outcomes

Providing remedial (also known as developmental) education is the primary way colleges cope with students who do not have the academic preparation needed to succeed in college-level courses. Remediation is widespread, with nearly one-third of entering freshmen taking remedial courses at an annual cost of at least 1 billion. Despite its prevalence, there is uncertainty surrounding its short- and longer-run effects. This paper presents new evidence on this question using longitudinal administrative data from Texas and a regression discontinuity research design. We find little indication that remediation improves academic or labor market outcomes.

Does Failing a Placement Exam Discourage Underprepared Students from Going to College

About one third of college students are required to take remedial courses. Assignment to remediation is generally made on the basis of performance on a placement exam. When students are required to take a placement exam prior to enrolling in college-level courses, assignment to remediation may dissuade students from actually going to college. This is because remediation could increase the time required to complete a degree (because remedial courses do not count toward academic degrees), and also because being identified as needing remediation might have stigma effects or provide students with new information about their unsuitability for college. This paper examines this issue empirically using administrative data from Texas. Using regression discontinuity methods, we find that students whose placement exam scores would require them to be in remediation are no less likely to enroll in college than are students who score just above the remediation placement cutoff.

Do Public Tuition Subsidies Promote College Enrollment? Evidence from Community College Taxing Districts in Texas

This paper estimates the effect of tuition rates on college enrollment using data for Texas from the 1990 and 2000 Censuses and the 2004 – 2010 American Community Surveys and geographical data on Community College Taxing Districts. The effect of tuition on enrollment is identified by the facts that tuition rates for those living within a taxing district are lower than those living outside the taxing district and in Texas not all geographic locations are in a taxing district. While the estimated effect of tuition on enrollment depends on the sample used, it is negative and mostly statistically significant in the samples of iadults 18 and older and negative and sometimes statistically significant in the samples of traditional age students 18 to 24. The estimated effect of tuition on enrollment, however, is found to vary considerably by poverty level status with an increase in tuition rates having a statistically significant negative effect on college enrollment for those with household incomes that are at least 200% of the poverty level both for traditional aged students 18 to 24 years old and all adults 18 and older.

Percent plans, automatic admissions, and college outcomes

Access to selective universities is highly coveted because of the perception that attending one provides opportunities otherwise difficult to obtain. To broaden access to the state’s flagship universities in a manner that does not rely on conventional affirmative action, Texas passed the Top Ten Percent Plan in 1997, which guarantees automatic admission to any public university in the state to students in the top decile of their high school class. We estimate the effect of eligibility for automatic admissions on college choice and persistence for students in a diverse urban school district. Regression discontinuity estimates show that eligibility for guaranteed admissions has a substantial impact on enrollments at Texas flagship universities and increases the number of semesters enrolled at flagships. The increase in flagship enrollments appears to displace enrollments in private universities but has no effect on overall college enrollment or the quality of college attended. The effects are concentrated in schools that have high college-sending rates (relative to other schools in the district), suggesting that automatic admissions may have little effect on students in the most disadvantaged schools.JelI2