Because many students enter universities unprepared for college-level work, universities offer remedial courses to bring them up to speed. The Pope Center has reviewed information available about the University of North Carolina’s remediation programs and found that surprisingly little is known.

While official numbers — including estimated costs per student — do exist, differing definitions of remediation across campuses impede comparisons, and official data apparently exclude some costs.

Another gap is the failure to track graduation or retention rates for students in remedial education. One UNC system researcher in the Department of Policy Analysis and Accountability explained: “The more we looked at the data, the more we realized that it was a rather complicated issue. Campuses have had different definitions for remedial courses and one campus could have different definitions from one year to another. It’s extremely hard to use or explain the data.”

Across the country, about a third of freshmen take at least one remedial course, according to the U.S. Department of Education. Evidence that these courses succeed is slim. Those taking remedial reading had only a 17-percent chance of completing a bachelor’s degree within eight years, according to Education Department data.

Perhaps recognizing this, over the past decade most UNC schools have limited their use of remedial education; fewer than 3 percent of students in the system, 4,884 in the 2007-08 academic year, took a remedial math or English course. Even so, the trend is up, especially due to the spread of “summer bridge” programs, which are academic “boot camps” for incoming freshmen.

According to a draft version of The University of North Carolina Remedial/Developmental Activities Report, in 2007-08, total expenditures for remediation that year were $2,543,370. State funds provided about 81 percent of that amount.

These figures evidently underestimate the costs of the bridge programs, however. The UNC system reports that bridge programs at Fayetteville State University cost a total of $90,138 in 2008-09. But this figure does not include UNC grants for students’ tuition, food, and lodging — an estimated $4,300 per student for the 111 students who started the program in 2008, or $477,300 overall.

Based on the system’s reporting of enrollment and program expenditures, per-student costs vary substantially by school — from $75.29 at UNC-Charlotte to $1,200 at UNC-Chapel Hill. Costs can differ because of the instruction methods used and the number of students who need remediation. The small number of students taking remedial education at Chapel Hill explains the high per-student cost.

The primary method is to offer lower-level courses (usually designated as 100-level, rather than the normal introductory course of 101 or 102). Students receive no credit towards graduation for these courses, since the work essentially repeats high school work.

East Carolina University has chosen an innovative approach to remediation; students take classes at Pitt Community College instead of at ECU’s campus. This method is fairly economical, costing only $132.46 per student. At Fayetteville State, all students enroll in the same courses, but those who score poorly on placement tests must enroll for either Reading Labs or Academic Support. The per-student cost of this technique is $772. (That is separate from the summer bridge program.)

As the table below indicates, spending varies widely. N.C. A&T State University’s remediation program cost more than $600,000 in 2008-09. At the other end of the spectrum, N.C. State University’s program cost only $26,900.

Performance may vary as well, but there is little evaluation, leaving students, parents, and taxpayers with little way of knowing whether those costs are making a difference for students who are unprepared for the academic rigors of a four-year college.

Jenna Ashley Robinson is campus outreach coordinator for the John W. Pope Center for Higher Education Policy (popecenter.org).