Developmental Education as a Strategy Toward State and Institutional Goals

Abstract

Public policy largely remained outside the contentious developmental education debate taking place on college campuses. It was not until the last decade of the twentieth century that public policy began to take a more aggressive stance on the placement of developmental education in American higher education and lawmakers became concerned about who was responsible for paying for developmental courses. With the understanding that community colleges were designed to provide wider access to students with diverse academic backgrounds, public policy often focused on reducing or eliminating developmental education in four-year institutions and on improving it in two-year institutions.