Imagine No Remediation: Evaluation of a Placement Policy Change

Abstract

We describe the effects of a change in the mathematics placement policy at a large 4-year public university. The change resulted in a sharp reduction of the number of students placed in remedial courses, while the levels of academic preparedness of the students, the course content, and the instruction methods remained the same. This allows us to estimate the effects of remedial placement on the educational outcomes of the students. We find that a remedial placement policy that was based on a standardized test cut-score under-placed a large number of students into remedial courses. At the same time, we find that a placement policy based on BAT/CRT scores was placing under-prepared students into college level mathematics courses.