Thirty-nine California community colleges that significantly expanded access to transfer-level English courses, instead of placing them in remedial courses first, saw significantly more students completing the course in 2018 than in 2015. The share of students completing the English courses in one term increased by 30 percentage points from 24 percent in 2015 to 54 percent, according to a report published Monday by the Public Policy Institute of California. The report analyzed how more than 100 community colleges improved placing students directly in transfer-level math and English in anticipation of a new law known as AB 705, which goes into effect this fall. That law requires the colleges to maximize the likelihood that students will enter and complete transfer-level courses within one year, instead of placing students in a sequence of remedial courses that many students take years to complete, or never do so. The report also found that nearly 63 percent of students who started an English “corequisite course,” devised as an alternative to remedial courses, completed the class on their first try. Corequisite courses are tied to the transfer-level course and provide academic support and assistance to students.