The Impacts and Experiences of Corequisite Remediation for Latino Students

Abstract

Many colleges across the United States are scaling corequisite remediation, an approach that places developmental education students directly into college-level courses with supplementary, aligned academic support. We conducted a randomized control trial in five colleges with ethnic diversity, offering a unique opportunity to examine the benefits of corequisite remediation for Latino students. Latino students represent a large portion of the U.S. college student population and are overrepresented among developmental education participants. We found positive impacts on college-level English course completion for Latino and non-Latino students when randomized to corequisites, and estimates suggest that Latino students saw larger benefits. Further, Latino students in corequisites were less likely to report feeling academically overwhelmed and/or bored relative to their Latino peers in traditional developmental education courses. This evidence suggests that corequisites can support improved academic success and potentially help to address gaps between Latino and non-Latino students in early college course completion. On the other hand, we found some evidence of less frequent Latino student engagement in discussions and asking questions relative to non-Latino students in corequisites (a pattern not observed in traditional developmental education courses), so it may be important to ensure that corequisite classrooms are inclusive and encourage broad student participation.