Community colleges nationwide are looking for solutions to help students complete developmental (remedial) math — a known barrier to graduation. Some are offering computer-assisted, modular developmental math courses that allow students to earn credits incrementally and move through the curriculum at their own pace.

One of these modularized courses, ModMath, was created at Tarrant County College (TCC) near Fort Worth, Texas. It reorganizes the content of TCC’s two semester-long developmental math courses into a set of six modules, each of which is five weeks long. The four primary components of the ModMath intervention are: a diagnostic assessment that places students in a starting module; individual registration into three modules per course section each semester; computer-based instruction delivered online through an instructional software program; and personalized, on-demand assistance in class from an instructor and class aide.

MDRC is evaluating ModMath’s implementation and its effects on students’ academic outcomes using a randomized controlled trial. This report contains implementation findings and some findings on early impacts for the first three semesters of students enrolled in the study:

- ModMath was well implemented and differed from traditional developmental math courses in both the nature of its instruction and its credit-earning structure.

- After one semester in the program, students randomly assigned to ModMath (the program group) were, on average, closer to completing the developmental math sequence than were students randomly assigned to traditional, lecture-based courses (the control group). This relatively greater progress was the result of program group students getting credit for completing one or two modules but not the equivalent of an entire course.

- However, this advantage did not translate into other measures of progress. For example, program group students were not more likely to pass the halfway mark in the developmental math sequence than the control group. More than 70 percent of the students in the study, in either group, were unable to pass this benchmark in the first semester.

- ModMath had a small negative effect on the percentage of students who completed the developmental math sequence during their first semester (0.4 percent of program group students compared with 1.9 percent of the control group).

The research study examines the pilot of Austin Community College's Rainy Day Savings Program, in which students earned up to $100 in cash incentives for completing certain tasks and meeting milestones that could impact future financial wellness.

The research study focused on three components:
(1) program participation;
(2) program outcomes, including financial well-being, emergency savings, fall-to-spring retention, fall-to-fall retention, and credential attainment, and;
(3) program impacts, using propensity score matching to compare the outcomes between those who received treatment and a statistically similar comparison group who did not.

ACC partnered with the Ray Marshall Center (RMC) at The University of Texas at Austin to study the effectiveness of the Rainy Day Savings program. This research study aimed to provide actionable information about the success of the intervention allowing for ACC and Trellis Foundation, who financially supported the program, to make decisions about program modifications and sustainability.

ABSTRACT: Developmental summer bridge programs are a popular strategy for increasing college readiness among recent high school graduates. Aimed at providing an alternative to traditional developmental education, these programs provide accelerated and focused learning opportunities in order to help students acquire the knowledge and skills needed for college success.

The current study uses an experimental design to evaluate the outcomes of eight developmental summer bridge programs offered in Texas during the summer of 2009. At each college, students who consented to participate in the study were randomly assigned to either a program group that was eligible to participate in a developmental summer bridge program or a control group that was eligible to use any other services that the college provided. Based on a program model developed by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, the developmental summer bridge programs in this study included four common features: accelerated instruction in developmental math, reading, and/or writing; academic support; a “college knowledge” component; and the opportunity to earn a $400 stipend.

After two years of follow-up, these are the main findings of this study:

- The programs had no effect on the average number of credits attempted or earned. Program group and control group students attempted the same number of credits (30.3). Students in the program group earned an average of 19.4 credits, and students in the control group earned an average of 19.9 credits; the difference in their outcomes is not statistically significant.

- The programs had an impact on first college-level course completion in math and writing that was evident in the year and a half following the program but no impact on first college-level course completion in reading during this same period. On average, students in the program group passed their first college-level math and writing courses at higher rates than students in the control group during this period. By the end of the two-year follow-up period, however, the differences between the two groups are no longer statistically significant.

- There is no evidence that the programs impacted persistence. During the two-year follow-up period, students in the program group enrolled in an average of 3.3 semesters, and students in the control group enrolled in an average of 3.4 semesters, a difference that is not statistically significant.

ABSTRACT:

Although dual enrollment programming and interest in how that programming shapes students’ college outcomes have expanded considerably in the past 20 years, policymakers, educational administrators, and practitioners do not have adequate information about which dual enrollment structural options are most effective. Using statewide administrative data in Texas on students who entered 9th grade in 2015 or 2016 and took at least one dual enrollment course through a community college, this paper examines dual enrollment course enrollments and outcomes among recent high school entrants.

The authors first describe dual enrollment coursetaking and dual enrollment course characteristics (including instructor affiliation, course location, and instructional modality) for traditional Texas public high school students (as opposed to those attending an Early College High School or charter school), illustrating how students participate in dual enrollment (e.g., the types of courses taken and when in their high school career students take these courses) and highlighting typical course characteristics. They then examine how dual enrollment course and instructor characteristics predict student course completion, course grades, and subsequent college enrollment.

The descriptive analyses illuminate striking differences between the demographic and academic backgrounds of students who take academic dual enrollment courses versus career and technical education dual enrollment courses, as well as variation in course characteristics across these two dual enrollment course types. The regression analyses illustrate how several malleable dual enrollment course characteristics are associated with students’ course outcomes and subsequent college enrollment. The relationships that are identified offer insights for the design of dual enrollment courses and programs.

Many college students are required to take at least one developmental math course, but as many as half of them fail to complete their developmental math requirements and never matriculate into college-level courses. To address this issue, the Charles A. Dana Center at the University of Texas at Austin created the Dana Center Mathematics Pathways (DCMP) to help colleges implement math pathways aligned with students’ programs of study in both developmental and college-level courses, accelerate students’ progress to and through college-level math, develop strategies to support students as learners, and integrate evidence-based practices in instruction. The Dana Center also created curricula the colleges used for three course pathways (focused on statistical reasoning, quantitative reasoning, and algebra/calculus).

This study looks at how four Texas community colleges implemented DCMP and how instruction in DCMP courses compares with traditional developmental and college-level math courses. Through a randomized controlled trial involving 1,422 students who entered the study from fall 2015 through spring 2017, the researchers examined the impact of DCMP on student outcomes for up to four semesters. The study also considers student perspectives on the reforms and the start-up and ongoing costs of DCMP to the colleges.

Researchers found that the colleges were successful in revising pre-existing policies, curricula, and pedagogy in order to launch and then scale DCMP courses to reach more students. They also found that instruction in DCMP courses looked very different from instruction in colleges’ standard developmental course offerings and college-level algebra courses. Finally, researchers found that DCMP students enrolled in and passed college-level math at higher rates than non-DCMP students, indicating that DCMP played a part in helping them overcome some of the pitfalls of developmental education and reach a crucial milestone.

Financial aid plays an essential role not only in allowing many students to enroll in college but also in supporting them in attaining completion and success. Often, however, the total amount of aid does not come close to covering the cost of attendance for full-time students. As a result, the majority of students enrolled at two-year public institutions report feeling financial stress related to paying for school. Students often work while attending college to cover the full cost of attendance, but time spent working can have a negative impact on their academic success.

MDRC launched Aid Like A Paycheck to test whether changes to the timing of student aid disbursement could help students stretch their financial aid to cover their expenses throughout the term, and whether such a policy could improve students’ academic and financial outcomes. Most colleges distribute financial aid refunds to students in one or two lump sums during the term. Aid Like A Paycheck tested an alternate approach, in which financial aid refunds were disbursed biweekly, with the goal of helping students better budget their existing financial aid.

MDRC conducted a mixed-methods evaluation of incremental financial aid disbursements at two community college systems in and around Houston, Texas, and at a third system in California’s rural Central Valley. At the two institutions in Texas, the study included a randomized controlled trial that gathered data from nearly 9,000 students and tracked them for up to two years. The final findings from the study indicate that biweekly disbursements do not result in substantial impacts on student outcomes:

- Students assigned to receive biweekly disbursements and those assigned to receive their aid in the standard way received the same total amount of financial aid.

- Biweekly disbursements reduced students’ debt to the college in the first semester, but this reduction in debt was no longer evident at the end of the fourth semester.

- On average, there is no evidence of biweekly disbursements improving students’ key academic outcomes.

- There is little evidence that the participating colleges or the government saved money by implementing biweekly disbursements.

- Implementation of the policy was costlier than — and not as simple as — expected, even when implemented without the constraints of the randomized controlled trial design.

Overall, the study suggests that incremental disbursements neither hurt students nor substantially improve their academic or financial outcomes.

This study longitudinally tracks students participating in a STEM-focused intervention program to investigate workforce participation patterns and their association with degree completion in a STEM field. Using longitudinal data from the University of Houston's Education Research Center, this study examines the extent to which students participating in a STEM intervention program require additional work to fund tuition and other life expenses. Findings demonstrated a negative effect of workforce participation on college completion and showed that minority students were more likely to participate in the workforce while also receiving financial support from the STEM program compared to peers from other racial backgrounds. Results inform institutional and financial aid policies, as well as admission criteria as it relates to broadening access of under-represented students in STEM.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:

Even after decades of improvement efforts, completion rates at community colleges remain low, particularly among students who need developmental education. Food and housing insecurity – referred to as basic needs insecurity – contribute to low completion rates. Community college students face higher rates of basic needs insecurity than other students. Yet basic needs insecurity often goes unaddressed, particularly at these colleges, due to resource constraints.

Community colleges have started to support students’ basic needs in multiple ways. Campus-based hubs offering services like public benefits access, emergency aid, food pantries and case management have become increasingly popular. However, limited evidence exists on whether connecting with these hubs improves academic success.

The Advocacy and Resource Center (ARC) at Amarillo College (AC) in Texas is a well-established example of how a college can care for its students. In 2018, The Hope Center published a detailed case study of the college’s approach to AC’s “culture of caring” embodied by the ARC. At the time, the ARC served 13% of Amarillo College students, well short of the estimated two-thirds who endured basic needs insecurity. This report details our partnership with the college to conduct an evaluation advancing two institutional goals:

• Increase utilization of the ARC, particularly among students most at risk of leaving college, with a low-cost technology-enabled approach
• Estimate the academic impacts of connecting students to the ARC

We identified students who might benefit from the ARC: those from low-income households and those enrolled in developmental education coursework. Placement in developmental education signals insufficient K-12 preparation and/or gaps in enrollment, both of which are associated with poverty. We targeted personalized emails to a randomly selected group of these students informing them of and inviting them to the ARC for support. These emails had positive impacts on students at AC:

• Rates of visiting the ARC more than doubled from 22% to 56%
• Developmental education students were 20% more likely to pass developmental education courses, a crucial milestone

However, we did not find clear evidence that nudged students completed more credits, received higher grades, or passed other courses at higher rates. While we saw promising trends regarding retention and graduation, they may be due to chance.

As community colleges across the nation work to improve student success and help students recover from the pandemic, this evaluation offers two lessons:

• Insufficient information about existing basic needs supports keeps students from getting the help they need. The information barrier may be effectively overcome with personalized nudging, a low-cost solution
• Connecting students to basic needs supports helps students make academic progress, particularly those in need of developmental education

Article Abstract: "In response to concerns about the additional costs and time-to-degree associated with traditional developmental education programs, several states and postsecondary systems have implemented corequisite reform where academically underprepared students take both a developmental education course and college-level course in the same subject area within a single semester. Texas is one of the first and most diverse states to require all public institutions to scale-up corequisite developmental education. In this study, we use longitudinal survey data from the population of public two-year and four-year colleges and universities in Texas to examine heterogeneity in institutional responses to implementation of a statewide corequisite developmental education reform throughout the 4-year scale-up timeline. We provide insight into how challenges, costs, and data-informed efforts differ for postsecondary institutions that were compliant versus non-compliant with the annual statewide targeted participation rates for corequisite enrollment. We conclude with implications for policy and practice to better support statewide corequisite developmental education reform."

This impact report, released in February of 2022, shows the Tarrant To and Through (T3) Partnership's progress since initial launch in 2020 through December 2021. The T3 Partnership, a local coalition of school districts, colleges, universities, employers, and community organizations, provides a variety of programs designed to inform and engage students and families about college and career pathways. It aims to ensure more Tarrant County students have the training and skills they need to thrive in today’s workforce.