least 6 percent were married. 11 ASAP was designed to help a broad array of students, and thisreport presents evidence that it was successful.ASAP requires students to enroll in college full time. Some higher education expertsargue that many community college students simply cannot attend full time because of familyobligations, work, or other issues. Nationwide, about 40 percent of community college students(roughly 2.8 million students) attend school full time. 12 This study shows that ASAP did boostfull-time enrollment, compared with regular college services. In other words, some studentswho would have attended college part time without ASAP attended full time because of theprogram. It is unclear, however, what the effects might be with a different target group, such aslow-income parents. It is also unclear what outcomes an ASAP-type program that did notrequire full-time enrollment would yield.What’s Next?ASAP’s effects at the three-year point are unprecedented. This section briefly describes theexpansion of ASAP within CUNY. It also presents a further possible study using the MDRCevaluation sample and efforts to replicate the program at other colleges.Expansion of ASAP Within CUNYBased on results from its internal study of ASAP and the positive effects from the randomassignment evaluation, CUNY committed to expand the program substantially. Thecurrent goal is to serve over 13,000 students by fall 2016 across the original six communitycolleges and additional CUNY colleges. Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn, a college in theCUNY system offering both associate’s and bachelor’s degrees, launched ASAP in fall 2014.In the expansion, most ASAP features have remained the same. In order to lower theprogram’s costs, however, there are a few changes, including fewer semesters of the ASAPseminar and somewhat larger caseloads for advisers. Each ASAP adviser is now responsible forno more than 150 students — more than during the evaluation period but still far fewer studentsthan with whom non-ASAP advisers work. During the first semester, all students meet withtheir adviser twice a month. Each subsequent semester, students are placed into one of threeneeds groups based on academic, personal resiliency, and program compliance criteria. Thegroups receive differentiated types of contact (individual, group, telephone, and e-mail) with a11 Fifteen percent of the evaluation sample did not indicate their marital status on the Baseline InformationForm.12 American Association of Community Colleges’ Community College Enrollment website(http://www.aacc.nche.edu/AboutCC/Trends/Pages/enrollment.aspx).92
sustained focus on maintaining strong relationships with advisers. Tracking data from CUNYshows that the vast majority of students continued to have contact with their adviser at leastonce a month.Longer-Term Evaluation of CUNY ASAPASAP’s effects for the sample of students in this random assignment evaluation arevery notable at the three-year point. It is also important to know what happens to these studentsin the longer term, and MDRC hopes to raise funds to continue studying students’ outcomes.ASAP was designed both to increase the proportion of students who receive a degree and tohelp them graduate more quickly. At the three-year point, ASAP may have caused students tograduate who would not have without the program, accelerated graduation for students whowould have done so eventually, or both. Therefore, open questions about academic outcomesinclude the following: Do program group students continue to earn associate’s degrees at highrates? Do control group members begin to catch up in terms of earned associate’s degrees?What are the longer-term effects of ASAP on bachelor’s degrees? It is also important to knowwhat happens to students in the labor market. A college degree is important in part because ofits potential to benefit its recipients in the form of better job opportunities. Finally, the programwas found to be cost-effective in terms of producing graduates at the three-year point. Whenconsidering ASAP’s costs relative to its effects for students, it is important to consider a longertime frame. If a program’s effect on graduation rates changes, its cost-effectiveness may alsochange.Replicating and Evaluating ASAP Outside of CUNYASAP is a highly promising program that merits testing in other settings. It is importantto know whether the comprehensive ASAP program can be successfully implemented by othercolleges, in different contexts with different students, and yield substantial effects. Studyingreplications of ASAP at different colleges would help answer that question and provide informationon how the program can be adapted for settings outside of CUNY and New York City.It would also help show whether ASAP is a cost-effective investment for other colleges.ASAP, with its unprecedented effects for students, has received much attention in thehigher education field, and many colleges have begun exploring whether they might adopt it ora similar model. MDRC is working with CUNY to develop evaluations of ASAP and ASAPlikeprograms at interested colleges to learn more about what might be driving the effects andwhether the program can successfully operate at a lower cost. If the results indicate that ASAP’seffects are consistently positive across institutions outside of CUNY, they may offer decisiveevidence that the model may be effective at most other colleges. If the program’s effects vary by93
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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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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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the program. Transcript data prior
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included the ASAP Assistant Directo
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participating in the program: conta
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Table 3.3 (continued)SOURCE: MDRC c
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survey respondents, 49 percent comp
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Evaluation of Accelerated Study in
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Other Student ServicesASAP offered
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equired to work with academic depar
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Service contrast: In general, non-A
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The average tuition waiver among pr
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- Page 151 and 152: ReferencesAdelman, Clifford. 2005.
- Page 153 and 154: Rutschow, Elizabeth Zachry, and Emi
- Page 155: About MDRCMDRC is a nonprofit, nonp