Latinos are enrolling in California colleges in rising numbers, but their outcomes lag behind those of white students. The Latino Academic Transfer and Institutional Degree Opportunities project is examining the approaches taken by Hispanic-Serving Institutions in California to improve the rates at which they transfer to universities and complete college.

In an effort to help students whose academic careers stall in remedial courses, community colleges are addressing both their approaches to placement and their traditional course structure. The use of multiple measures to assess college readiness is increasing, and several instructional reforms are gaining traction.

The Talent Dividend competition encouraged major metro areas to find ways to boost their proportions of college graduates. The effort suggests that cross-sector partnerships and interventions that ease students’ transitions to the next level of education hold promise in aiding credit attainment and narrowing achievement gaps between groups of students.

Faced with many applicants with very low math skills, community colleges are responding with a variety of reforms, including restricting developmental courses to students with high-school-level skills. This brief provides context for the policy changes and describes the alternatives two colleges offer to those who don’t make the cut.

Forty percent of all entering college students and over half of entering community college students must take at least one remedial course. Fewer than half make it through developmental education. This two-page Looking Forward memo provides an overview of research evidence in four areas of developmental education reform.