Developmental, or remedial education, is one of the more highly scrutinized elements of the community college sector.
One of the pitfalls of remedial education is that it extends the period prior to earning actual college credits.
As a result, many students drop out along the way. According to a recent report from Complete College America (CCA), only 17 percent of students who start out in remedial education will complete a degree. It is an issue that affects a large number of community college students. According to the same CCA report, 42 percent of all students are placed in remedial education and 36 percent of recent high school graduates, who in theory should be the most prepared for college.
Issues in remedial education affect all the states in the union, but efforts to address them are ongoing at the state level.
In Illinois, the community college system is making progress toward reducing the number of students going into remedial education, officials from the Illinois Community College (ICCB) said. Between 2011 and 2015, the state has seen a 24-percent reduction in the number of community college students enrolling in developmental education.
“It is a problem in every state, and we are committed at both the Illinois Community College Board and the Illinois Community College system to reducing the time to degree for students,” said Dr. Karen Hunter Anderson, ICCB executive director. “One of the ways that we will do that is by eliminating to the extent possible any kind of remediation.”
In Illinois, public higher education—and public education more generally—has been impacted by a budget impasse at the state level.
