In 2026, postsecondary education is under greater scrutiny than at any point in recent memory. There is a growing public sentiment that the high cost of postsecondary education doesn’t yield adequate value for students and their families. Too few students earn postsecondary credentials that result in economic and social mobility to justify the cost.
This sentiment persists despite a national movement over the past 15 years to improve postsecondary attainment rates. Great progress has been made at many institutions and in postsecondary systems, but wide-scale adoption of evidence-based reforms remains elusive. At the top of the list of reforms that can reduce college costs and contribute to improved college attainment rates, but that has yet to be scaled nationwide, is developmental education reform.
There is more evidence than ever that eliminating prerequisite developmental education and implementing highly effective reforms is essential to improving student success rates. The Community College Research Center at Columbia University’s Teachers College has found that comprehensive student success reforms like improved advising or guided pathways won’t reach their full potential without first scaling developmental education reform.
Overwhelming evidence shows that eliminating prerequisite developmental education, adopting corequisite math and English, aligning gateway math courses to programs of study, and using high school GPA for gateway math and English placement results in accelerated student progress to a degree. Despite the undeniable evidence of impact, these reforms have not been fully scaled. The report “Incomplete: The Unfinished Revolution in College Remedial Education” assessed the current state of reform:
The nation has made extraordinary progress over the past 15 years in defining the shortcomings of traditional remediation … and implementing reform at scale. But there has been stagnation and even reversals of promising reforms.”
—Kim, 2024
For decades, prerequisite developmental education courses have negatively impacted postsecondary completion. Further, prerequisite courses have exacerbated inequities in gateway course completion and student success. The prerequisite approach increases time to degree and the cost of a postsecondary education and reduces the likelihood that students will complete a gateway math and English course. It is time to pull prerequisite developmental education courses from every course catalog in the nation.
Research has shown that students, regardless of their preparation level, are more successful when placed directly in college-level math and English courses and receive additional corequisite support than students placed into prerequisite courses (The RP Group & California Community Colleges, 2025; Tennessee Board of Regents, 2025). Institutions using prerequisite developmental education courses have first-year gateway math course completion rates at around 20 percent and 45 percent in gateway English. These completion rates have doubled or tripled in states, systems and institutions that have eliminated prerequisite developmental education and implemented evidence-based reforms.
Despite the undeniable success of developmental education reforms, few states and systems have adopted policy to scale the reforms. Seven states—California, Connecticut, Georgia, Nevada, Kansas, Louisiana and Texas—have comprehensive policies to scale these reforms at all postsecondary institutions.
In the other 43 states, hundreds of thousands of students are still being placed into highly ineffective remedial courses. This past week, Strong Start to Finish, a network of state and national postsecondary leaders that works with states and postsecondary systems to scale developmental education reforms, released a new blueprint for the full-scale reform of developmental education in states.
The 2026 Core Principles for Transforming Developmental Education Reform provide the field with the most up-to-date guidance to implement and scale the reforms. First appearing in 2012, with subsequent versions in 2015, 2020 and now 2026, the core principles build on more than a decade of evidence and research on reforms that have been rigorously tested at the state and system level.
Strong Start has made the principles the cornerstone of their North Star goal: “All states ensure students are on track to graduate after their first year by 2040.” In 2026, Strong Start is launching a new campaign to engage policymakers, system leaders and practitioners in the critical work of scaling and sustaining developmental education reform. This campaign seeks to scale reforms for all postsecondary students in the nation.
At a time when postsecondary education needs to demonstrate its value, the full-scale adoption and implementation of developmental education reforms are a foolproof way to reduce the costs for students and remove an unnecessary hurdle to a credential. Scaling developmental education reforms is absolutely necessary to improve outcomes for students and build greater public trust in postsecondary education.
