A comprehensive community college program that provides academic, personal, and financial supports to low-income students, with the goal of increasing college graduate rates.
[Disclosure: Arnold Ventures funded the long-term follow-up of the Ohio RCT. We are also funding the delivery and/or evaluation of ASAP programs at other locations, including Westchester Community College in New York, Skyline College in California, and West Virginia Community and Technical College System.]
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.
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]