Around 40 percent of students who enter community college are thought to be academically underprepared for college-level coursework. Many community colleges require these students to complete noncredit developmental courses before taking college-level courses. While developmental courses may prepare some students for college-level work, research suggests that many students are being referred to these courses unnecessarily, resulting in a loss of time and money that could have been put toward earning a college credential.

Historically, colleges have used standardized testing to determine whether a student is ready for college-level work or requires developmental courses first, but this method has been criticized as inaccurate. To obtain more accurate placements, nearly three-quarters of colleges now use multiple measures assessment (MMA) systems. These systems typically do consider students’ scores on standardized tests, but they also incorporate additional measures of academic preparedness such as high school grade point average (GPA).

This report synthesizes findings from two studies that compared the effects of traditional test-only course placement to MMA course placement. These studies, conducted by the Center for the Analysis of Postsecondary Readiness (CAPR), involved 12 community colleges across three states (New York, Wisconsin, and Minnesota) and 29,999 students. Students were randomly assigned to either a test-only placement group or an MMA placement group, and their subsequent academic outcomes were compared.

The main findings from this analysis are:

• For most students, the course placement systems “agreed,” so their placement-system assignment was inconsequential. Although students were randomly assigned to either a test-only or an MMA placement group, and this assignment dictated their actual course placement, data were collected on how students would have been placed under each system. Using these data, this analysis found that for 81 percent of the total math sample and 68 percent of the total English sample, the test-only and MMA placement systems “agreed”—that is, they referred students to the same level of coursework. Faculty members generally set the thresholds for the MMA measures high enough to avoid dramatically increasing the number of students placed into college-level courses. It can be concluded that these students were not affected by the placement system used; they would have had the same experience under either system.
   
• MMA improved academic performance when it allowed students to bypass a developmental course they otherwise would have been required to take. Students who benefited from MMA met the following criteria: (1) The systems disagreed on how they should be placed, with the MMA system recommending college-level courses and the test-only system recommending developmental courses, and (2) They were randomly assigned to the MMA group. Typically, such students had relatively low test scores but relatively high GPAs, compared with students placed directly into college coursework in test-only placement systems. This group of students—designated the “bump-up” group—was approximately 8 percentage points more likely to pass a college-level course in the tested subject and earned, on average, 2.0 more credits than counterparts who met the first criterion above but were assigned to the test-only group. MMA placement also appeared to increase the likelihood of earning a degree or transferring to a four-year school by 1.5 percentage points—a promising though not statistically significant effect.
   
• MMA had a negative impact on academic performance when it imposed a developmental course requirement on students who would otherwise have been placed directly into a college-level course. In the inverse of the situation in which students benefited from MMA, students whose academic performance was negatively affected by MMA met the following criteria: (1) The two systems “disagreed” about placement, with the MMA system recommending developmental courses and the test-only system recommending college-level courses, and (2) The students were randomly assigned to the MMA group. Typically, such students had relatively high test scores and relatively low GPAs, compared with students placed directly into college coursework in test-only placement systems. This group of students—designated the “bump-down” group—had negative academic outcomes compared with their counterparts who met the first criterion above but were assigned to the test-only group. Bumping down occurred only in the New York colleges study. At the Wisconsin and Minnesota schools, students who qualified for college-level courses in the test-only system were placed in those courses regardless of MMA results. The same is true for most colleges today that use MMA placement systems. 
   
• The evidence shows that referring more students directly to college-level courses is more important than a placement system that better predicts success in college-level courses. In the studies in this analysis, MMA predicted success in college-level courses better than test-only placement systems did. However, this analysis indicates that MMA led to better outcomes not because of improved predictions but because it allowed more students to proceed directly to college-level courses. This conclusion arises from the fact that only students who bypassed a developmental requirement due to MMA—and not those who had a requirement added due to MMA—experienced better outcomes. This trend was even true for the least prepared students in the sample (students with high school GPAs below 3.0). Therefore, the evidence from this analysis is that colleges can improve student outcomes by increasing the number of students they place directly into college-level courses.
   
• The cost to a college of implementing MMA is small. For students and society, MMA saves money because students take fewer total courses but end up with more college-level credits. Both students and society as a whole (the sum of student, government, and college perspectives) save money when MMA is implemented at a college. Under an MMA system, students take fewer developmental courses and earn more college-level credits. For colleges, implementing MMA comes at a cost. This cost includes the direct cost of implementing the MMA system (60 dollars per student) but no savings from reduced developmental course offerings, because of the corresponding loss of tuition.

When used to place more students directly into college-level courses, MMA is a cost-effective strategy for improving college progress, worthy of consideration for state and college policymakers. More generally, this research finds evidence that colleges should consider increasing the total number of students referred directly to college-level courses, whether by lowering their requirements for direct placement into college-level courses or by implementing other policies with the same effect.