Ready or Not? California's Early Assessment Program and the Transition to College

Nearly one in three first-time freshmen in the U.S. are enrolled in some remedial/developmental course in English or math at their college or university (U.S. Department of Education, 2003). Rates of remedial course enrollment vary substantially across U.S. colleges and universities, with some institutions not offering any and others enrolling upwards of 80 percent of their incoming students in remedial classes. Part of the explanation for the large share of remedial students in American colleges and universities may be limited information. Students are often ill informed about what they need to do to succeed in college and subject to the (arguably) mistaken perception that everyone must at least attend, if not complete, college in order to succeed in the labor market. A majority of high school students, regardless of their academic performance, report that they will attend college (Rosenbaum, 2001). In fact, academic performance accounts for little of the variance in students’ expected levels of educational attainment. Despite the pressing need to ensure that more students obtain a postsecondary degree, we know surprisingly little about what leads to college readiness and degree completion.

This study focuses on California’s efforts to improve college readiness through the Early Assessment Program (EAP).  The EAP is an intervention designed to increase the quality of information about academic preparedness available to high school students.  We aim to understand how an increase in information about college readiness affects students’ need for remediation once enrolled, and whether the effect of this information varies for different types of students (by gender, race/ethnicity, and academic background). Although several studies have demonstrated that many students are relatively uninformed about what it takes to succeed in college, the question of how we might effectively enrich the information on which students base their postsecondary decisions remains largely unexplored.