Pre-University Courses and Student Performance

In this paper we investigate whether remedial courses, designed to fill in the gaps in basic skills, bring about any improvement in undergraduate student attainment. Our analysis is based on a project financed by the Regione Calabria, which provided a number of educational/training activities to all freshmen enrolled at the University of Calabria at the beginning of the academic year 2008-09. The problems related to self-selection were addressed both by using the very detailed information we have available on a large number of individual characteristics and identifying a control group consisting of students who had not participated in the activities for various incidental reasons. From our analysis emerges a positive effect of remedial courses on student performance during the first year of their academic career. These results prove robust to use of a matching estimator.