Adult Education Makes Steady Progress in Partnerships with Minnesota State

In 2020 an Affinity Group was formed to explore and support partnerships involving MinnState faculty and staff working with Adult Education instructors and administrators to address students enrolled in developmental education classes who are underprepared for college success in the areas of math, reading, and writing.

In 2023, Minnesota State initiated a statewide effort to replace existing Dev Ed non-credit courses with a corequisite course format that, upon completion, would award students with college credit. The full implementation of the co-req course format is expected to occur by AY 2027-28.

To this day, over 125 practitioners remain abreast of Affinity Group topics of mutual interest and discuss challenges and success stories, in hope of designing effective partnership strategies and best practices of value to students and educators. This school year’s Affinity Group meets virtually in the fall, winter, and spring to stay connected and apprised of developments in the corequisite movement to ensure that student needs remain at the center of the work. Each season, approximately 40 practitioners gather for 75-minutes of learning and discussion.

The fall-season gatherings occurred on October 30 and 31 (with the same meeting content for each). Part of the meeting involves an update provided by the facilitators regarding the status of corequisite work at the system level. The information shared is provided via a conversation with Anthony Miller, System Director of the P-20 Unit. Before providing the current update, it’s important to refamiliarize the reader with the phased plan of shifting to the corequisite model.

According to Minnesota State,

“The Developmental Education Reform goal is to complete the work and launch the developmental education corequisite model at all Minnesota State colleges and universities in Fall 2027.

• • Phase I: Project Planning and Corequisite Model Development (Spring 2024 – Fall 2024)
  • Phase II: College and University Curriculum Alignment and Policy Review (Spring 2025 – Spring 2027)
  • Phase III: Implementation (Fall 2027 – Spring 2028)
  • Phase IV: Continuous Improvement and Evaluation”

Regarding the Office of Higher Education (OHE) Study: In 2023 the MN Legislature called for review of MinnState’s course placement practices. OHE was charged with putting the recommendations forward and hired a consultant to work with MinnState. The purpose being to ascertain the issues students may encounter once placed, going into Dev Ed, ELL, advising, and admissions practices. It attempts to identify the positive and negative impacts these practices are having on students.

MinnState’s Assessment for Course Placement Committee: Policy modifications recommended last year (2023-24) were placed on hold pending review of the external study.

According to Anthony Miller, the policy recommendations are generally consistent with other state systems and in line with the general national practices. They include the full range, including multiple measures, guided self-placement, and GPA which has a 10-year limit. There is hope for greater consistency across campuses. Currently, the draft policy has been posted for open comment within the system.

Professional development for corequisite faculty members: The Network for Professional Development is offering 3 courses this semester for faculty (under Math Pathways offerings).

The discussion portion of the Affinity Group meeting was lively, including the following concerns:

• What is the wrap-around services and resources that students need to prepare for their participation in corequisite classes? And, what support measures do they need when they are enrolled in a corequisite course?
• Can the Affinity Group provide an inventory of partnerships across the state to provide value to those involved in various stages of partnership?
• Need for pre-algebra classes to prepare students for college algebra.
• Career and technical programs have unique concerns, and only offering corequisite classes may not be the solution that is needed.
• Faculty teach composition very differently, so how does this get managed via corequisite offerings?
• Will there be a floor for access to corequisite coursework to aid placement efforts and thereby help to ensure student success in course completion?
• There is a lack of learning phonics and the possible need to offer some type of linguistics coursework.
• Lastly, it was expressed that campus staff and faculty need to understand how ABE is structured and funded to be able to ensure the local ABE programs has the financial means to enter into a sustainable partnership with their area Minn State campus.

For Affinity Group updates and discussions, please view the meeting recordings:

• Meeting 1 – October 30, 2025
• Meeting 2 – October 31, 2025