ASAP is a comprehensive program, implemented at two-year community colleges, that provides academic, personal, and financial supports to low-income students with the goal of increasing graduation rates. ACE is an adapted version of ASAP that uses the same student support model, but is delivered at four-year (as opposed to two-year) colleges.
[Disclosure: Arnold Ventures helped fund the Ohio and John Jay studies. We are also funding the delivery and/or evaluation of ASAP at other U.S. locations.]
Originally developed by the City University of New York (CUNY), ASAP provides academic, personal, and financial supports to low-income community college students to help them earn an associate’s degree within three years. Participation is offered to new students and continuing students who have earned 12 or fewer credits, and is voluntary. Core program components include: (i) required full-time enrollment; (ii) a range of resources that ASAP students are required to use including an ASAP-dedicated advisor who helps students with academic, social, and interpersonal issues, a career counselor, and (if needed) tutoring services; (iii) special class scheduling options to ensure that ASAP students secure the classes that they need and that they take remedial classes (if needed) early in college; and (iv) financial supports such as tuition waivers equal to the difference between students’ tuition/fees and their existing financial aid, free textbooks, and gift cards for transit or food.
ACE is an adapted version of ASAP that uses the same comprehensive student support model, but is delivered at four-year (as opposed to two-year) colleges.
The estimated per-student cost of ASAP (beyond that spent on non-ASAP students) was approximately $13,838 in the CUNY study and $8,030 in the Ohio study.[1] ACE’s cost has not yet been reported, but is likely to be modestly higher than that of ASAP given ACE’s longer duration as a four-year college program.