Developmental summer bridge programs helped prepare low-skilled students for college in Texas, concludes the National Center for Postsecondary Research (NCPR) Teachers College. Compared to a control group, bridge participants at seven community colleges and one open-admissions university were more likely to take and pass college-level math and writing classes in the fall semester. Participants also attempted higher-level classes in reading, writing and math.
All developmental summer bridge programs had four common features: accelerated instruction in math, reading, and/or writing; academic support; a “college knowledge” component; and the opportunity for participants to receive a $400 stipend.
Program costs averaged about $1,300 per student but varied widely.
Most summer bridge students needed more remediation in the fall: 32 percent of summer bridge students passed college-level writing during their first semester of college compared with 27 percent of control group students. Only nine percent passed college-level math, which sounds dreadful but is more than twice the four percent pass rate for the control group.
Acceleration worked at Texas A&M International University (TAMIU), said Conchita Hickey, executive director of the University College.
Instead of just lecturing and doing problems on the board, we broke students into small groups with tutors, and we had a required, structured lab. A continuing observation from faculty over the years has been that the students who pass developmental math are the ones who do their homework. And so I think the lab that accompanies our program is key—the students are there and they don’t have an excuse not to do their homework.
. . . now I don’t even want to offer beginning algebra during our regular school year. We have begun piloting intermediate algebra alongside college algebra so students take them together in learning communities.
A significant percentage of bridge students skip one or two levels in just five weeks, said Hickey.
Had these students not participated, they might have had to start in beginning algebra, and then they would have had to do intermediate algebra and only then get to college algebra. And all of those different levels cost money, and they cost time.
Nationwide, six out of ten students entering community college need at least one remedial class and only 25 percent of these students ever go on to earn a college degree or credential.
