Academic Advising, Remedial Courses, and Legislative Mandates: An Exploration of Academic Advising in Florida Community Colleges with Optional Developmental Education

In this article we report on our exploration of academic advising practices at 19 community colleges in the Florida College System after the implementation of Senate Bill 1720. This bill made developmental education optional for many students and mandated that colleges provide academic advising for all new students. Descriptive statistics of survey responses from college administrators uncovered academic advising patterns across these 19 community colleges. Our findings indicated that many administrators agreed that their advising practices were effective and that most colleges used a variety of advising tools. In an era of greater student choice, colleges diversified their advising protocols and methods of guiding students in a variety of ways.