Abstract
This contribution evaluates a postsecondary remediation program in mathematics, aiming to ease the transition from high school to university and to improve the success rates in the first year of bachelor studies. The remediation program consists of the administration of an entry test and the organisation of voluntary bridging education in the format of an online summer course. Participants are prospective students of the university programs business and economics of Maastricht University, and are mostly students with an international background. Effect analysis suggests a strong treatment effect of successful participation in the summer course, and with lower effect sizes, of being educated in advanced math versus basic math in high school. However, given the quasi-experimental setup of this study, with non-equivalent groups, selection effects may be responsible for a part of that effect. For that reason, the treatment effect is corrected by applying the propensity score method, indicating that indeed a selection effect is present, but that after correction, a substantial treatment effect remains, of about 50% the size of the prior math education effect.