Evaluating Academic and Economic Effects of CUNY’s Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP) and Its Replications
Overview
While the U.S. has made strides in increasing college access among students from low-income backgrounds, college completion rates have remained low. Graduation rates are particularly low at our nation’s community colleges, which enroll a large number of low-income college students. Only a third of full-time, first-time degree-seeking students at public two-year colleges earn a degree within three years of enrollment. Evidence-based strategies to improve graduation rates are greatly needed as the nation has made increasing college completion a priority.
Over the past 20 years, MDRC and other researchers have conducted evaluations showing that comprehensive student support programs can dramatically improve degree attainment for community college students. Perhaps the strongest example is Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP), designed and implemented by the City University of New York (CUNY), which has produced among the largest effects on graduation rates.
ASAP is a comprehensive program that provides students with up to three years of financial, academic, and student support services. These services — which include tuition waivers, textbook vouchers, monthly financial incentives, intensive advising, enhanced tutoring, career counseling support, and a requirement to enroll full-time while in the program — form the core components of the ASAP model, which has earned national attention for its track record of effectiveness.
Since 2010, MDRC has played an important role in building ASAP’s evidence base through the suite of projects described below.
Interested in replicating ASAP at your institution?
CUNY ASAP’s technical assistance team partners directly with institutions committed to replicating the ASAP model with a high level of fidelity. Please contact CUNY directly for more information at [email protected].
Additional Project Details
Current and Past Research
CUNY ASAP
To facilitate timely degree completion, in 2007 CUNY launched Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP). In 2010, MDRC began a randomized controlled trial (RCT) evaluation to examine the implementation, cost, and impacts of the program, finding that ASAP had an estimated 18 percentage point effect on three-year graduation rates and increased six-year graduation rates by 10 percentage points. Effects of this magnitude are by far the largest MDRC has found in our 30+ RCT evaluations of community college interventions conducted since 2003.
Supported by the federal Institute of Education Sciences, MDRC is currently conducting a long-term follow-up study that will examine ten-year academic and labor market outcomes.
Since the 2007 inception of the ASAP model, many colleges around the country have replicated the successful program; MDRC is conducting evaluations of three of these replications, described below.
ASAP Ohio Demonstration
In the first of many ASAP replications, MDRC and CUNY partnered in 2015 to launch the ASAP Ohio Demonstration, an effort to determine whether CUNY ASAP could be successfully implemented at community colleges in Ohio. Three Ohio community colleges—Cincinnati State Technical and Community College, Cuyahoga Community College, and Lorain County Community College—operated their own programs based on the CUNY ASAP model. MDRC conducted a random assignment evaluation to examine the implementation, cost, and impacts of the effort, which demonstrated that ASAP in Ohio nearly doubled three-year graduation rates and led to an increase in transfers to four-year colleges, mirroring the impacts achieved in the original CUNY program. Additionally, the Ohio programs had positive effects for various types of students, including those who entered with and without developmental education requirements, suggesting that the model’s comprehensive support can be implemented in various settings and help students with different needs.
MDRC is currently conducting long-term follow-up to examine impacts on academic outcomes and labor market outcomes through ten years. In an April 2023 report presenting the first experimental estimates of the effects of the ASAP model on employment and earnings, MDRC found that after six years, students in the program group experienced a 15 percentage point increase in graduation rates and an 11 percent increase in annual earnings.
Viking ROADS
In 2018, Westchester Community College (WCC) in New York State launched Viking ROADS (Resources for Obtaining Associate Degrees and Success), a student support program based closely on the ASAP model. MDRC is conducting a randomized controlled trial of the Viking ROADS. The study took place during the COVID-19 pandemic, which had various implications for the program and the resulting findings. Students who began the study in fall 2019 were required to adapt to remote learning after one semester, while the students starting in fall 2020 and spring 2021 joined the study at a time when classes and student supports were available almost exclusively online. In-person classes did not resume until fall 2021 and, even after in-person classes were available, the majority of students continued to opt for a combination of real-time and asynchronous online classes.
Despite the pandemic, the program was found to have positive effects on enrollment and credit attainment during the first year of the program — findings that align with the CUNY ASAP and Ohio replication findings. A report with three-year findings, including graduation rates, will be released in 2024.
Part-Time SAIL
In two-year colleges, part-time enrollment is often more common than full-time enrollment: 63 percent of degree-seeking students at two-year institutions attend part time. Part-time enrollment is especially common among low-income students, students of color, students who are parents, adults, and others who balance work and family responsibilities while in school. With less than a third of part-time students successfully graduating from two-year colleges, there is great need to learn “what works” for part-time students to help them accumulate credits and graduate.
Lorain County Community College (LCCC) is one of the three colleges in Ohio to adapt, implement, and evaluate the ASAP model in partnership with CUNY and MDRC. LCCC has successfully sustained that program since 2015. Due to the unprecedented effects seen in the New York and Ohio ASAP programs, CUNY, MDRC, and LCCC launched in 2020 the Part-Time Student Accelerating in Learning (SAIL) comprehensive program at LCCC, an effort to determine whether the ASAP model can be adapted for part-time students. Study recruitment concluded in spring 2024 and a report with four-year findings will be published in 2029.
Design, Sites, and Data Sources
All four studies (CUNY ASAP, ASAP Ohio Demonstration, Viking ROADS, and Part-Time SAIL) use a random assignment design, where eligible students were randomly assigned either to a program group, whose members were eligible for the program, or to a control group, whose members were eligible for standard college courses and services.
The following colleges have participated in the evaluations:
Study | Sites |
---|---|
CUNY ASAP | Borough of Manhattan Community College Kingsborough Community College LaGuardia Community College |
ASAP Ohio Demonstration | Cincinnati State Technical and Community College Cuyahoga Community College Lorain County Community College |
Viking ROADS | SUNY Westchester Community College |
Part-Time SAIL | Lorain County Community College |
The following data sources have been used in the evaluations:
CUNY ASAP | ASAP Ohio Demonstration | Viking ROADS | Part-Time SAIL | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Baseline demographics | ||||
Qualitative (e.g., interviews) | ||||
Survey (one-year follow-up) | ||||
Cost data | ||||
College administrative records | ||||
National Student Clearinghouse | ||||
Labor market data |
Featured Work
Three-Year Effects of CUNY’s Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP) for Developmental Education Students
Promising Interim Findings from the Viking ROADS Randomized Controlled Trial