Abstract
State policymakers in the United States have in recent years experimented with new initiatives to change the procedures used by public institutions to assess and assign academically underprepared students to non-credit developmental education (or remedial) courses. This study explores whether the most recent developmental education reform in Floridas—Senate Bill 1720 has affected student enrollment in the Florida College System (FCS) institutions and whether the enrollment effects vary by race/ethnicity and age. Through a difference-in-differences analysis, we did not find statistically significant effects of the reform on the college enrollment in Florida, neither on the racial or age compositions of the student population, compared to non-Florida institutions in the surrounding region. These null results provide valuable implications for policy and research consideration in Florida and beyond.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Number of pages | 11 |
| Journal | SAGE Open |
| Volume | 13 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| Early online date | 3 Nov 2023 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 3 Nov 2023 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© The Author(s) 2023.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The research reported here was supported by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (OPP1161017). The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not represent views of the Gates Foundation.
Keywords
- developmental education
- student enrollment
- community colleges
- difference-in-differences
- policy reform
