A Kentucky statewide evaluation finds corequisite developmental education support helped some underprepared students pass first-year English more often than traditional prerequisite pathways, while math outcomes varied by course level and readiness. Published through CALDER at the American Institutes for Research, the working paper examines first-time freshmen in the Kentucky Community and Technical College System (KCTCS) from 2019–20 through 2023–24. Students assigned to corequisite support—paired academic instruction while enrolling directly in credit-bearing courses—showed higher odds of taking and passing college English when placed just below the ACT English cutoff. Math findings were less uniform: corequisite support appeared to improve passage for students with very low math skills in non-college algebra courses, but not college algebra. The report also notes that students who still faced prerequsites before accessing supported college-level work saw no measurable benefit. The study’s implications for institutional leaders are practical: corequisite models can reduce delays when program math requirements match incoming students’ pathways, but they do not fully resolve algebra readiness gaps for majors tied to stricter sequencing.
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