The percentage of students entering the state's public colleges and university unprepared for college-level course work has dipped once again, marking the lowest rate in at least the past five years.
The remediation rate has fallen from 41.4 percent of 22,024 students in 2014 to 39.7 percent of 22,138 students in 2015, according to a report released by the Arkansas Department of Higher Education.
The report tallies the number of first-time students who scored below 19 in math, English or reading on the ACT college-admissions exam and were required by state law to complete noncredit, remedial course work before taking traditional classes. Higher education officials and policymakers have been studying the numbers, looking for new ways to retool the remedial classes that historically have not been successful in helping students toward graduation.
The remediation rate is an indicator of the graduation rate: Half of the students who need remediation won't pass on the first try and, if they do, the success rates after that are typically low. The state, which has ranked at or near the bottom in the number of residents graduating in six years, is working to help more students graduate and get into the workforce.
"We are definitely moving in the right direction," said Higher Education Department Director Brett Powell. "There's two ways that remediation enrollment declines: One is improvement in college readiness of students, and the second is the way we enroll students."
Average ACT scores of the latest group increased slightly from last year, showing small steps of improvement in college readiness, he said.
On his second point, Powell pointed to the different models that the state's colleges and universities have adopted to more correctly place a student into a remedial or a credit-bearing course or a blend of the two. There are still other initiatives, such as a fast-track remediation, that other schools are using.
"We used to put students into two buckets, it was a yes or no question," Powell said. "So what we're trying to say ... is that it's more complicated than that, that a student with an 18 [on the ACT] and a student with a [19] may be equally prepared. A student with a 16 is probably less prepared than one with a 19. So let's look at the data a little closer to figure out where to put the student."
The department's latest report shows that the remediation rates declined in all three test areas for 2015.
The number of students needing remedial course work in math fell from 30.5 percent of 22,024 students in 2014 to 29.1 percent of 22,138 students in 2015. English remediation fell from 25.7 percent of 22,024 students in 2014 to 25.2 percent of 22,138 students in 2015. Numbers in reading remediation fell from 19.7 percent of 22,024 students in 2014 to 19.2 percent of 22,138 students in 2015.
Overall, the four-year institutions had smaller percentages of students needing remedial course work in 2015 -- 28 percent of 15,155 students.
Of the four-year universities, Arkansas Tech University in Russellville, Henderson State University in Arkadelphia, the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith, and the University of Central Arkansas in Conway had decreased percentages of students assigned to remedial classes.
The community colleges showed similar downward trends with 65.4 percent of 6,983 students needing remedial classes. Two-year colleges usually have higher remediation rates because they have lower admission standards.
Universities such as the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff and the University of Arkansas at Monticello have open-admission policies, allowing students to enroll regardless of test scores or high school grades. Those schools usually rank higher in remediation rates.
UAPB was one of eight colleges, though, that has signed on with Complete College America -- a national nonprofit created in 2009 to work with states to increase the number of Americans with higher education credentials -- to allow students to bypass the traditional, semester-long remedial courses and go into a credit-bearing course with supplemental instruction.
The initiative, which has been implemented across all higher education institutions in some states such as Tennessee, has been successful with more students passing the introductory course and even higher retention, Tristan Denley, the vice chancellor for academic affairs at the Tennessee board of regents, has said.
Before the Complete College America project, UAPB had two different remedial buckets: one for the lowest academic tier of students and one for a group that needed refreshers in certain areas, said Jacquelyn McCray, UAPB's interim vice chancellor for academic affairs.
Now, UAPB has combined "basic math" with "intermediate algebra" in one remedial math course. English and reading remedial courses were also grouped into one course, and students needing more attention in those areas are now placed in basic English and composition 1 at the same time.
In both cases, the remedial students are taking the course five days a week -- three in the regular course and two days of supplemental instruction, McCray said.
In the fall, McCray appointed a remediation redesign committee at the university to examine the data on the co-requisite plan and to look for ways to improve, she said.
The university is looking at the students admitted under "conditional prep," or those who score below a 15 on their ACT scores, she added.
"When they come in at that level, they're rarely successful," McCray said. "Many are leaving with high balances and high student loan debt."
And that's the number that's most affecting the university's overall remediation rate, she said.
"Historically, there were little opportunities for some students who weren't proficient for college work," she said. "With the proliferation of junior colleges, our enrollment management office looked at the conditional prep students, and every last one them was in driving distance of a junior college. Now they are everywhere."
The university's open-enrollment policy comes with a caveat for those scoring lower on the ACT exam: They must sign a year-long contract with the enrollment management program, agreeing to attend workshops and tutoring sessions.
Arkansas State University in Jonesboro has adopted a similar model under a Complete College America grant, said Jill Simons, the dean of the University College at ASU, adding that it's led to success.
The university has pared down the number of developmental classes to one, self-paced course for math.
"What we did before for math, it was very structured with students taking developmental math 1, then developmental math 2 based on their ACT scores," Simons said. "But it didn't give students freedom, especially if they needed just a quick brush up. So now that's self-paced."
Now, students sit in a lab and go through the material at their own pace on a computer, she said. If they need help, an instructor is on hand. If the professor sees an area where many students get stuck, the teacher may prepare a mini-lecture before letting the students tackle the materials.
Like UAPB, the Jonesboro school also grouped reading and English remedial courses into one course called academic literacy. That course is taken at the same time as English 1, she said.
"I know for a fact that they are very much improved," Simons said of the students. Simons pointed out that the students were taking fewer remedial courses and consequently, shelling out less money. "Every extended semester they aren't making progress to a degree, the more likely they are to drop out."
At the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, a similar effort is underway. That university, too, has combined developmental reading and writing in fall 2014, allowing for remedial students to take that course alongside composition 1, said Sherry Rankins-Robertson, the university's associate vice chancellor for academic affairs.
UALR will start its new remedial math redesign this fall, calling for two remedial groups.
Some of the schools have also adopted a quantitative literacy or reasoning course in lieu of college algebra. The replacement is for students studying in fields that may need, say, more statistical work than regular algebra.
The Little Rock university will include different cutoff scores for basic remedial and an intermediate remedial in both quantitative reasoning and college algebra, Rankins-Robertson said.
The University of Arkansas at Monticello has not adopted the co-requisite model but instead is trying out eight-week remedial courses. It started in fall 2015.
The open-admissions and open-enrollment university has an evolving plan, meaning officials are analyzing data along the way to see what is working, said Jimmie Yeiser, UAM's provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs.
"This is important because remedial students represent 60 to 70 percent of our freshmen class," Yeiser said. "Some students show up and haven't taken the ACT or SAT, and whenever we had nothing to go by, we automatically put those students in remediation. But if you don't need remediation and you're put in a remediation course, you're bored stiff."
Now, the school is making its entering students write an essay for them, another way for school officials to better place the student in a course. No one tool is perfect, Yeiser said.
The eight-week remedial courses are held every day, similar to a high school's scheduling. Typically, a student could be in a remedial math and remedial English course -- and that's it. If a student passed those, he could then move to either fundamentals or a credit-bearing class in the next eight weeks.
In fall 2014, the student success rate for remedial English was about 59 percent, Yeiser said. The success rate in the eight-week course jumped to 78 percent, he said.
Math remedial courses also saw increased success rates, but by 15 percentage points.
UAM is pushing stronger faculty-student relationships so that instructors know when students may be struggling, Yeiser said, adding that it will also push "intrusive advising" in fall 2016. The university has also cut off open enrollment for students needing remediation.
Another factor to consider about students enrolling in universities with historically high remediation rates is where those students come from, Powell said. That's more about being ready for college, he added.
But some higher education institutions, such as UALR's Donaldson Scholars Academy, and even regions, such as the Southwest Arkansas College Preparatory Academy, have gotten behind programs to help high school students get ahead of the curve. ASU is exploring whether to create a similar program.
"Many of them have heard that college was not an option for them," Rankins-Robertson of UALR said. "This is about changing the trajectory of their family history."
Metro on 01/30/2016