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• Career and employment services covers the cost of ASAP-specific careerand employment specialists who advise students on jobs, career planning,scholarships, and networking, and who host career fairs.Course Enrollment• Blocked or linked courses covers the cost of reserving seats for ASAP studentsin courses that are scheduled back to back or as a set in their first year. 4• ASAP seminar covers the cost of the required seminar course that ASAPstudents took within their first few semesters.Financial Supports• Tuition waiver covers the cost of waiving the difference between an ASAPstudent’s tuition and fees and financial aid (the sum of the federal Pell Grantand New York State Tuition Assistance Program grant).• MetroCards covers the cost of providing free unlimited monthly Metro-Cards to ASAP students who meet program requirements.• Textbooks covers the cost of ASAP’s buyback/rental policy with the collegebookstore, which provides free use of textbooks to ASAP students.Controlling CostsASAP has expanded since its inception in the CUNY system. As ASAP has grown, ithas been able to control per-student costs by achieving economies of scale, leveraging relationships,and targeting ASAP services to high-need students. The program has achieved economiesof scale by spreading fixed costs across a greater number of ASAP students. For example, thecost of administration per student generally decreases as programs expand. The program hasleveraged relationships by negotiating discounted prices with the Metropolitan Transit Authorityand Barnes and Noble bookstores to lower the cost of MetroCards and textbooks, respectively,for ASAP students. Specifically, ASAP paid on average $73 per monthly MetroCard over4 Blocked or linked courses, along with the costs associated with the tuition waiver, make up what isknown as the “faculty replacement” fee within the CUNY system. This fee was designed as a lump sum paidout to the colleges by CUNY Central in exchange for the waiving of ASAP students’ tuition (the portion thatwas not covered by financial aid), reserving spots or blocking entire courses for ASAP students, and occasionallyopening extra summer or winter session courses for ASAP students. For the purposes of this analysis, thefaculty replacement fee was split to show the amount associated with the tuition waiver and costs that went tothe colleges to reserve and block courses for ASAP students.76
the three-year follow-up period, while the cost to an individual student was $112 at the end ofthe follow-up period. ASAP also developed a textbook buyback policy, which provides studentswith the free use of textbooks at a much lower cost than if ASAP were to buy textbooks foreach student. Finally, program participants are low-income students who generally receivefinancial aid that largely covers the cost of tuition. As a result, the cost of the tuition waiver forASAP students has been one of the smallest program components (roughly 3 percent ofASAP’s direct costs). If ASAP were expanded to include students who do not receive as muchfinancial aid, then it is possible that the costs associated with the tuition waiver could increase,potentially increasing the cost of the program dramatically.Base CostIn order to understand the context of ASAP’s direct cost, this analysis estimates the cost of theusual college services provided to non-ASAP students. This cost is referred to as the base cost.This analysis uses the estimated cost of credits attempted as a proxy for base costs. Thisapproach assumes that the use of resources corresponds to the number of credits attempted. Inother words, a student who attempts more credits is generally associated with greater expendituresthan a student who attempts fewer credits. 5 Credits attempted serves as an appropriatedriver of base costs because it provides a simple measure of the level of a student’s engagementwith the college. To estimate the dollar value of credits attempted, the number of creditsattempted is multiplied by an estimated cost per credit. This cost per credit is estimated bydividing the college’s annual total expenses and deductions by total instructional activity (creditand contact hours attempted) at the college during the year of interest as reported in the financialand enrollment data on the National Center for Education Statistics’ Integrated PostsecondaryEducation Database System (IPEDS). (These values include the cost of depreciation and thecost of scholarships.) 6 The average cost per credit, in constant 2013 dollars, yielded by thiscalculation is then used to estimate the cost of the usual college experience. 7 This approach isnot perfect. One limitation is the assumption that all credits attempted have the same cost to the5 It is possible, however, that students use services such as advising and counseling independent of thenumber of courses in which they enroll.6 Depreciation accounts for the cost of long-lived assets such as buildings, equipment, and vehicles. Althoughsuch assets are not consumed in one year, they are consumed with time. Including depreciation ensuresthat the cost of this consumption is accounted for. For more information on accounting standards in IPEDS,both for depreciation and scholarships, see the IPEDS factsheet, “IPEDS Finance Data FASB and GASB —What’s the Difference?” (http://nces.ed.gov).7 Total expenses and deductions, as reported on IPEDS for public institutions in the new GovernmentalAccounting Standards Board (GASB 34/35) form, are divided by IPEDS’s enrollment measure of total 12-month instructional activity (reported in credit or contact hours) by year to calculate the cost per creditattempted at a college. This cost per credit at the three CUNY schools in the study was calculated to be aweighted average of $470.53 in constant 2013 dollars.77
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DOUBLINGGRADUATIONRATESThree-Year E
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The ASAP evaluation is supported by
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ContentsOverviewList of ExhibitsPre
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List of ExhibitsTableES.1 Key Diffe
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PrefaceCommunity colleges provide r
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ing students. Several ASAP staff wo
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• Financial supports: Students re
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Evaluation of Accelerated Study in
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ed. ASAP provides enhanced student
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public transportation. By the end o
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Chapter 1IntroductionPostsecondary
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lation and graduation rates of any
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The same may be said about the ASAP
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Finally, MDRC examined the costs of
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Random Assignment Process and the S
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CharacteristicEvaluation of Acceler
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tal courses, the characteristics of
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the program. Transcript data prior
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included the ASAP Assistant Directo
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Advisers discussed both full-time e
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Page 52 and 53: participating in the program: conta
Page 54 and 55: Table 3.3 (continued)SOURCE: MDRC c
Page 56 and 57: survey respondents, 49 percent comp
Page 58 and 59: Evaluation of Accelerated Study in
Page 60 and 61: Other Student ServicesASAP offered
Page 62 and 63: equired to work with academic depar
Page 64 and 65: Service contrast: In general, non-A
Page 66 and 67: The average tuition waiver among pr
Page 68 and 69: Box 3.4Javier and the Value of the
Page 74 and 75: Looking to the Next ChapterOverall,
Page 78 and 79: 52Enrollment rate (%)10090807060504
Page 80 and 81: ASAP consistently increased student
Page 86 and 87: (See Table 4.3 for more details.) A
Page 90 and 91: cohort (spring or fall). 16 A forma
Page 96 and 97: ASAP has had a dramatic effect on t
Page 98 and 99: $16,284 of additional investment in
Page 104 and 105: college, which is not the case. 8 F
Page 106 and 107: cost is equal to the average cost p
Page 110 and 111: program group is $13,423 (11.4 perc
Page 112 and 113: credits than control group students
Page 114 and 115: Students in CUNY’s focus groups a
Page 116 and 117: tion’s Finish Faster initiative,
Page 118 and 119: least 6 percent were married. 11 AS
Page 120 and 121: college, the results will shed ligh
Page 125: Evaluation of Accelerated Study in
Page 129 and 130: This appendix addresses two aspects
Page 133 and 134: and among survey respondents would
Page 135 and 136: 2. Creation of Survey ScalesThis se
Page 137: A scale is created as the unweighte
Page 151 and 152: ReferencesAdelman, Clifford. 2005.
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Rutschow, Elizabeth Zachry, and Emi
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About MDRCMDRC is a nonprofit, nonp
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