Raising Minimum Math Course Requirements for College Admission

This study explores the effects of a statewide policy change that increased the number of high school math courses required for admission to four-year public universities in North Carolina. 

Students took more math courses in high school following the state's announcement, with relatively larger increases for students in the middle and bottom quintiles of their eighth-grade math test scores. The results suggest this increased math course-taking led to higher high school graduation rates. It also led to increases in enrollment rates at universities in the University of North Carolina system, with the largest increases being in the quintiles of student achievement from which universities were already drawing the bulk of their enrollees. 

However the authors find scant evidence of boosts in post-enrollment college performance due to increased math course-taking in high school.