Remedial education for underachieving students in last year of high school: substantial long-term gains

This paper analyzes the long term effect of a high school remedial education program, almost two decades after its implementation. Thhe authors combine high school records with National Social Security administrative data to examine longer-term outcomes when students were in their early 30s.

The evidence suggest that treated students experienced a 10 percentage points increase in completed years of college schooling, an increase in annual earnings of 4 percentage points, an increase of 1.5 percentage points in months employed, and a significant increase in intergenerational income mobility. These gains are reflecting mainly improvement in outcomes of students from below median income families.

Therefore, the study concludes that remedial education program that targeted underachieving students in their last year of high school had gains that went much beyond the short term significant improvements in high school matriculation exams.

A cost benefit analysis of the program suggests that the government will recover its cost within 7-8 years, implying a very high rate of return to this remedial education program.