Oregon Community Colleges Upend Their Approach to Math to Make It Add Up for Students

A new way of teaching first-year math — fueled by Oregon Community Foundation donors — aims to ensure that more young people and older adults are prepared for the jobs of the future.

Two years ago, Jennifer Hughes was 45 and supporting four children ages 11 to 22 when she was laid off from her job as an operations manager at a seafood company in Astoria. Nurses, she knew, could find a job almost anywhere.  

“So I just jumped two feet in and went back to school,” says Hughes, who enrolled full-time at Clatsop Community College.  

But first, she had to succeed at math. 

With a high school diploma but no prior college credits, she was placed in instructor Celeste Petersen’s Math 105, a college-level, credit-earning course, and Math 105Q, its corequisite.  

“I told Celeste, I haven't been in math for 20-some years, and I didn't have a great math experience in high school, and she promised me that when I walked out of her class, I would have a new appreciation for math. She was not wrong,” Hughes says. 

Here’s why: Seed funding from Oregon Community Foundation and The Ford Family Foundation launched reforms that today are upending the traditional model of first-year math at community colleges. The new approach is helping teenagers fresh out of high school and returning adults like Hughes break through common barriers to graduation and speed their way toward better-paying jobs and greater financial stability for themselves and their families.   

An economic development challenge 

Traditionally, students entering community college without college-level math skills were routed through multiple remedial math courses, now called “developmental” math. Only after passing one or more developmental courses could they advance to the college-level math courses required for their degrees. 

For many students — especially students of color and those from low-income backgrounds, who are overrepresented in developmental courses — this is where the obstacles emerge. Having enrolled in college to get ahead, they become trapped in developmental courses for months or years, demoralized and racking up debt. 

With each below-college-level course that students are required to take, they are more likely to leave without finishing their degrees. That doesn’t just harm their prospects. It diminishes the state economy and hinders businesses that increasingly demand a skilled workforce.

By 2031, 70% of jobs in Oregon will require a postsecondary credential, according to the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. Yet only 56% of young adult Oregonians (age 25 to 34) have one, the state’s most recent figures show.

“This is not just a higher education challenge,” says Elizabeth Cox Brand, executive director of Oregon Student Success Center.

A new developmental-math path, fueled early on by OCF investments, shows promise at helping more students complete their degrees faster, with less debt. It allows first-year students to skip the developmental courses and go straight into college-level math.

Alongside this “parent” class, students enroll in a corequisite math class with the same instructor, who provides them with additional time and support to practice concepts, develop stronger study skills, and understand math’s relevance to real-life scenarios through active, hands-on learning.

A predictor of success

When Hughes was laid off, two of her four children were in college, with the other two not far behind. As their sole support, she needed a new, stable career that would pay well. She’d always been intrigued by nursing, especially after helping her youngest daughter navigate a childhood cancer and caring for her elderly mother.

Math was among the prerequisites she’d need to gain admission into CCC’s nursing program.

Buoyed by Petersen’s support and the corequisite model, Hughes earned a B in Math 105. Later, to boost her chances at getting into the limited-entry nursing program, she took Statistics. She earned a B in that, too.

“The corequisite gave us that extra time to go through the things that we weren't understanding. We could all help each other out,” Hughes says. “Celeste was great about, if she was teaching it one way and I wasn't understanding, she would find some other way of thinking about it that would click with me.”

Hughes’ success reflects the increase in pass rates at most of the nine Oregon community colleges that offer corequisite math. At Clatsop Community College, 86% percent of students taking the corequisite alongside Math 105 passed the class, compared to 75% taking Math 105 alone, according to 2022-23 data.

For many students, the impact extends far beyond one class.

Math instructor Celeste Petersen, Ctatsop Community College

“That's something that we've seen that students who can finish a college-level math class in the first year are much more likely to actually get their degrees. It’s a predictor of success,” Petersen says.

Today, Hughes is on track to complete her Associate of Applied Science (AAS) Nursing degree and sit for the registered nurse licensing exam in early 2026.

Indispensable support for systemic change

Launching the corequisite model in Oregon “wouldn’t have happened” without the initial backing from OCF and The Ford Family Foundation, Cox Brand says.

Starting in 2016, OCF granted $225,000 over three years to The Student Success Center’s efforts to streamline course offerings overall—work that evolved to include redesigning developmental math. The goal: To increase the share of community college students who complete an associate degree or certificate or transfer to a university within four years. Only one out of two students do.

“OCF takes a statewide approach in education, which means we don't have the philosophy or the capacity to go to each of the 17 community colleges one by one. We’re looking for those intermediary organizations that can work across the system to enact large-scale change,” like the SSC, says Belle Cantor, OCF’s senior program officer for education.

OCF support enabled Oregon to participate in a national “learning community” of college leaders and developmental education reformers. Soon, the SSC attracted more grants for curriculum planning and instructor training, including $500,000 from Strong Start to Finish, a reform group backed by the nonprofit Education Commission of the States.

Expanding opportunity to every ZIP code

In California, Georgia, Tennessee and other states where the corequisite model is available statewide, the approach is helping all students, regardless of background, Cox Brand says. It particularly benefits groups historically underserved by the education system, including students who are low-income, from rural areas, or are Black, Indigenous, or people of color.

So far in Oregon, the decision to offer corequisite math has been left up to each of the state’s 17 community colleges. That may be about to change. Earlier this year, at the urging of Cox Brand and the Oregon Community College Association, Oregon lawmakers established a work group to determine how to standardize the model across the state system. The group’s recommendations are due in December.

In Oregon, everyone should have the same opportunity to succeed, as Cox Brand put it:

“If every college doesn’t offer corequisites, then students are penalized for their ZIP code. And that shouldn’t be OK.”

Improving education and opportunity for Oregonians: what you can do

• Learn more about the Student Success Center at the Oregon Community College Association's work to help more Oregonians earn degrees and career certificates.
• Fuel innovative approaches to expand opportunity for Oregon students, with a gift to the Oregon Scholarship Fund.