Colorado’s college remediation rates rose in 2010-11, but retention rates increased for students enrolled in remedial classes, according to a report released today by Lt. Gov. Joe Garcia.
Lt. Gov. Joe Garcia
The report attributed part of the increase to more students, saying, “These rates appear to be related to overall growth in college enrollment.” Higher education enrollment grew 5.6 percent from 2009-10 to 2010-11, some 14,000 students.
While rates were up over the prior year, remediation rates – overall and broken out by type of institution – have remained much the same over the last six years.
Here are some of the key findings:
• The percentage of first-time high school graduates placed into at least one remedial course was 31.8 percent, up from 28.6 percent in 2009-10. The largest number of students needed remediation in math.
• The remediation rate for community colleges was 58.2 percent and 20.5 percent at four-year schools. (Students are counted as needing remediation of they require a basic skills class in one subject – math, reading or writing.)
• Some 57 percent of adult students (those over age 20) required remediation in at least one subject.
• Only 57.7 percent of students who needed remediation continued for a second year in college, compared to 75.2 percent of all recent high school graduates. The retention rate for remedial students has increased from 51.9 percent in 2005-06.
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• White, non-Hispanic students have the lowest remediation rates while black students had the highest. Women had a slightly higher remediation rate than did men.
• Remedial education costs the state $22 million a year and costs students $24 million.
Garcia, meeting with reporters at the Capitol, said, “It’s not a surprise we see remediation rates increasing,” given the changing demographics of K-12 students and an emphasis on getting more students into higher education.
Given those factors, “The need for remediation is probably going to remain constant at best if not increase,” the lieutenant governor said.
He was careful not to put the blame on high schools, saying, “This is not intended to say to the K-12 system ‘You guys are failing.’”
Colleges are increasingly focused on retaining students, and Garcia called the increase in retention rates “encouraging.”
This DHE chart shows percentages of students needing remediation by subject and type of college. (Click to enlarge)
Garcia said community colleges are developing new approaches to remediation with a recent $1 million grant from Complete College America (see story).
He also touted House Bill 12-1155 as a way to help attack the remediation problem. Students who need remediation, even those admitted to four-year schools, have to take remedial classes through community colleges.
The bill would allow four-year schools to offer some remedial work to their students, provide a way to pay for those classes and give students more flexible ways of getting help, rather than having to take full classes to meet remedial requirements.
Several other bills that attempt to deal with remediation are pending. One of those, Senate Bill 12-047, would require high schools to give the Accuplacer test to every student. The hope is that would give schools data they need to help struggling students before they graduate and thus reduce remediation once students get to college.
Garcia said he likes that concept. But the administration hasn’t taken a position on the bill. He noted the state’s GEAR UP program provides similar services for low-income students.
The Department of Higher Education has gathered remediation data since 2001. Garcia also is executive director of the department. Reducing remediation rates and increasing retention numbers are policy priorities for the Hickenlooper administration.
Inside the report
Among community colleges, the Community College of Denver has the highest remediation rate at 73.3 percent. Morgan Community College had the lowest at 48.8 percent. Some individual community colleges showed declines in their rates.
For four-year institutions, Adams State College had the highest rates at 56.8 percent, but that’s down from 67 percent three years ago. The University of Colorado Boulder rate was a miniscule .6 percent, followed by the Colorado School of Mines at 1.4 percent.
The document also breaks out remediation percentages for graduates of individual high schools, including private schools, who enroll in Colorado colleges. The lowest rate as 1.3 percent at D’Evelyn High School in Jefferson County. Denver’s West High School had the highest remediation rate at 89 percent. (For privacy reasons, data is not broken out for high schools that send fewer than 25 students to Colorado colleges. Data from those schools is included in statewide totals.)
Education News Colorado analyzed the reported remediation numbers for individual high schools in the state’s 10 largest districts to come up with district figures.
Douglas County showed the lowest percentage of graduates needing remediation, 21.5 percent, up slightly from 2009-10. The Boulder Valley district’s percentage was 21.8 percent, also up from last year.
The Aurora schools had the highest percentage of graduates needing remediation, 59.8. That was up from last year. The Denver Public Schools had 58.9 percent of graduates needing remediation, down very slightly from the prior year.
Here are figures for the state’s other largest districts:
- Adams 12-Five Star: 39.1 percent, up from 2009-10
- Cherry Creek: 28.5 percent, down
- Colorado Springs 11: 34.5 percent, up
- Jefferson County: 28.6 percent, up
- Poudre: 22.9 percent, down
- St. Vrain: 31.2 percent, no change
For this first time, this year’s remediation report includes data from private schools. For the 11 such schools for which numbers were individually reported, the overall remediation rate was 23.8 percent.
Read the remediation report here.
Why not put the blame on high schools and K-12? Who is to blame for this students? parents? We should just expect rates to raise as more low-income and minority students graduate from high school and attend college….I strongly disagree. It assumes high schools and K-12 in general has no means of changing the remediation level of students, not true. It seems there is a fundamental and systemic problem when students are given diplomas from some high schools/districts and more than half require remediation. Not only is it a huge cost for the state, but it is totally unfair to students that thought their high school diploma meant they were ready for college level work.
Van you are correct. When I was on the state school board in the late 1980′s I tried to get a law/regulation that would take money out of the k12 budget to give to higher education for providing remedial courses. One approach I advocated was to send the remediation bill to the high school that gave out a diploma without insuring that students were literate in each subject.
That idea never got past the school boards and unions political power to protect their money.
Then I tried to see if we could ‘take it off of the top’. That would be taking the then $24 million from the overall school finance act and giving it to the colleges to pay for the remedial courses that they offered. That also died.
Sadly remediation is not a burden placed on the student’s budget, and creates more debt for students trying to do well in college yet damaged by their K12 experience.
After fighting vouchers for decades I have come to seek them, in a fair manner, in order to empower students and their families to be heard and responded to by local school boards. Let the money travel with the student from school to school, public or private. It is interesting that many politicians like to ‘attack’ the socialist European countries. Yet most northern European countries, the ones that out perform our schools, provide choice and permit more parental freedom for k12 than we do.
third paragraph of above should say ‘now’ not ‘not’.
Why do we use the ACT as a indicator of college readiness when it is intended to be used as a way to rank students? The ACT is used to compare what a student knows to other students. The test is written to purposely have some students get the answer wrong, in order to rank them. Ever wonder why the remediation rate stays similar from year to year? It’s because the ACT norms their results. We need a better indicator of what a student knows and does not know. The results might be better or worse. At least it would be more accurate.
Ed, can K-12 be reimbursed from the colleges for students who get college credit for their high school experience? IB or AP course credit?
Van, I understand and share your frustration but I don’t think it’s fair to put the blame solely on schools especially in light of those systemic problems that you mention. It might be more fair to share some of that blame with the district or even the state. Heck, in a state like Colorado, there’s even enough blame to share with all of the taxpayers who continually vote ‘no’ on education funding increases.
The reality is that a high school diploma has never meant that the bearer is necessarily ready for college work. You might say that it should and I would likely agree with you but it doesn’t. Not even in the best districts. I went to school in Iowa when it was number 1 in the country in education and, even there and then, a diploma didn’t mean that. Many of my classmates went straight to work in manufacturing or service and many went to community college where some required remediation. The alternative, at least until the systemic problems are addressed, is to fail an awful lot of students. I know that in an ideal world that wouldn’t be true but we must recognize the important distinction between the maxims “Anybody can achieve” and “Everybody can achieve”. Right now, the first is true but the second, unfortunately, is not.
Mark, your point about ACT is a fair one though it seems to matter little whether it is a 10th grade CSAP or ACCUPLACER score in terms of identifying students needing remediation. I also would like a much deeper assessment of what kids know and can do, e.g. “A Levels.” The bigger issue has to do with why schools issue diplomas to students suggesting they are ready for college work when they know they are not and have known this for years! It isn’t fair particularly when many students will take out loans and the students will be holding the dept. It is a totally messed up system for low-income kids particularly when you add the for-profit colleges with their “game design programming” programs in the mix.
Perhaps, schools shouldn’t admit students that are not qualified for their school. Institutions have varying standards for admission. Students should apply to, and be accepted into, schools where they meet the criteria. The effort is in finding the right fit. If a student wants to be admitted to a certain school, they should be responsible to meet the admission requirements. If one needs remediation, they can go get it, then reapply.
As a teacher I’d like an asseesment that is set up to measure instruction if I am to be held accountable. As a school I want to “mine” the assessment data to decipher what is going on. It is very difficult to get to the meat of the issue if we are using an aptitude exam that is normed. I’d love to work with higher Ed to develop our own state assessment.