CSU Eliminated Remedial Prerequisites, Not Remediation

Executive Order 1110 ended the stand-alone developmental course. The students who needed it are still here, one in three of them in math, and the system's own reports show how far behind they remain.

By Thomas J. Norman, Ph.D., Professor of Management, California State University, Dominguez Hills. Views are the author's own.

In August 2017 the California State University did something that most public systems had only talked about. It abolished its placement tests, ended the requirement that under-prepared students complete non-credit remedial courses before touching college math or writing, and ordered every first-year student into credit-bearing general education courses in the first year. Executive Order 1110 was described, then and since, as the end of remediation at the CSU.

The CSU's own records say something narrower. The March 2025 report to the Legislature puts it precisely: the order "discontinued standalone, non-credit–bearing developmental education courses." The students who would have taken those courses did not disappear. They were sorted by "multiple measures" into four categories, and the two categories that need support, III and IV, still contained 22,711 of the 68,311 first-year students who entered in fall 2023 in math, a third of the class. In written communication, 10,758 students, 16 percent, were placed with support.

What changed is where the remediation happens. It moved from a separate course with its own number into co-requisite sections, supplemental instruction, "stretch" composition sequences that run across two semesters, and a summer Early Start program that students in Category IV are required to attend and, unless they qualify for a waiver, to pay for at $191 a unit. The need did not go away. It became less visible.

The artifact

The document shows: EO 1110, signed August 2, 2017, Section V.B, directs that students needing support enroll in college-level courses with "co-requisite" support, supplemental instruction, or stretch formats, with pre-baccalaureate content limited to one unit. Section VI.D: "Early Start Program participation is required for students needing skills development." The order never claims that students no longer need development; it changes the vehicle.

The document shows: the first results the Board of Trustees received, in March 2019, were framed as a breakthrough. The number of students in the support population "passing a lower-division math course increased eightfold from 950 (fall 2017) to 7,952 (fall 2018)," and the share of that cohort passing a college math course in the first term rose from about 5 percent to 46 percent (Educational Policy, Item 3, p. 5). The Board was also told the data were "preliminary, representing one semester of outcomes" (p. 4).

The gap

The evidence suggests: the eightfold figure measured a door opening, not a floor rising. In fall 2017, students judged not ready were barred from the credit course; only 1,438 of roughly 17,400 attempted one. In fall 2018 the same population was placed directly into supported credit courses, and 11,988 attempted one. Among those who attempted, 66 percent passed in both years (CSU deck, March 21, 2019, slide 14). More students passed because more students were allowed in the room, which was the point of the policy and a real gain. It is not evidence that the students arrived better prepared or that the supports closed the preparation gap.

The document shows: seven years of the system's own category tables measure the gap directly. For the fall 2023 cohort, students placed in math with support and Early Start (Category IV) returned for a second fall at 68 percent, against 86 percent for students placed directly (Category II). They completed 17 first-year units against 26, earned a 1.98 grade point average against 2.95, and by the end of the second fall 53 percent had met the math requirement against 81 percent. In written communication, Category IV persisted at 63 percent against 83, completed 15 units against 24, and 48 percent had met the requirement against 78 (2025 report, pp. 8, 11, 14, 18). Across five cohorts, fall 2020 through fall 2024, the math persistence gap between the two categories has run between 15 and 20 points every year.

The document shows: the share of the entire entering class meeting the math requirement within a year rose from 63 percent (fall 2017) to 74 percent (fall 2018) and 76 percent (fall 2020), then fell back to 70 percent for the fall 2023 and 2024 cohorts. Written communication went from 79 to 82 percent and then down to 75. The policy's first-year gains have not held.

The document shows: the gap is not uniform across campuses. At Dominguez Hills, 56 percent of fall 2023 first-year students were placed in math with support, against 34 percent systemwide, and Category IV students persisted at 58 percent against the system's 68 (2025 report, pp. 7, 19; campus rows read by text extraction and flagged for confirmation). At Long Beach, the campus reports that among students needing additional support, 81 percent of the fall 2024 cohort had met the math requirement by the end of the third semester, against 59 percent systemwide (CSULB College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, September 16, 2026). Same policy, same categories, a 22-point difference.

The system

The evidence suggests: three features of the system produce this pattern. First, EO 1110 standardized placement and enrollment but delegated the design of support to each campus, so "Category IV" names a population, not a treatment. Long Beach built separately numbered co-requisite courses (MATH 92, 94, 95; STAT 90; MTED 90), a credit-bearing Early Start course (ESM 100), a diagnostic (ALEKS PPL) on top of the multiple measures, early alerts through EAB Navigate, and a faculty committee that has owned the redesign for a decade and publishes its results. Dominguez Hills, on its public pages, folds support into 4-unit integrated statistics sections and a precalculus course with supplemental instruction, uses a self-placement survey for writing and no visible math diagnostic, and publishes no account of a redesign or its results. Whether those differences cause the outcome difference is not established; that they are invisible in the systemwide reporting is.

Second, the reporting the Legislature required measures students, not supports. The annual report tells the public how Category IV students fared. It does not tell the public what the campus did for them, what it cost, who taught it, or whether the student paid for Early Start. The data that would allow comparison across campuses sits on a Student Success Dashboard that "requires CSU access credentials."

Third, the headline that launched the policy set the wrong expectation. "Eightfold" and "5 to 46 percent" were true and were about access. They were received as being about preparation. The result is a public conversation in which the CSU is credited with having solved a problem that its own tables show it has relocated.

The remedy

None of this argues for the placement tests or the non-credit course. The 2017 reform removed a barrier that kept thousands of students, disproportionately Black and Latino students, from attempting college work for a year, and the share of students meeting the requirement in one year is higher than before. The argument is for honesty about what remains and for the records that would let campuses learn from each other.

Four changes would do most of the work. The annual legislative report should publish its per-campus category tables as data files, not as PDF pages whose columns separate from their labels when extracted. Each campus should report, alongside its outcomes, the support model it uses for Categories III and IV, the sections and staff devoted to it, and the cost per supported student and its fund source. Early Start should report participation, fee revenue, and waivers by campus. And the Student Success Dashboard should be opened to the public at the level of detail already given to the Legislature; nothing in it identifies a student.

A fifth change is editorial, and the CSU can make it tomorrow. Stop describing EO 1110 as the end of remediation. Describe it as the move of remediation into the credit curriculum, and report on how well that move is working, campus by campus.

Disclosure: the author is a tenured professor at Dominguez Hills and has served in its Academic Senate. He has no role in its mathematics, writing, or first-year programs and writes here as an individual. Corrections: [email protected].