Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

The vast majority of students who begin in community colleges ultimately aim to earn a bachelor’s degree or higher, according to analyses by the National Center for Education Statistics.  For a variety of reasons, including not being “college ready” or academically prepared, or for cost-saving reasons, students often begin their path to a bachelor’s degree through a community college.  Unfortunately, completion rates for these students remain stubbornly low.  National data show that six years after starting at a 2-year institution, 65 percent of students have not yet earned any degree from anyinstitution. 

The Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP) program at CUNY was designed to support associate degree-seeking students through a combination of comprehensive advisement, financial assistance and structured pathways.  The goal of ASAP is to help students graduate with an associate degree, but like many students beginning at community colleges, most ASAP students aim to transfer and earn a bachelor’s degree as well.  ASAP has been found to be remarkably successful at increasing three-year associate degree attainment rates and has achieved an average cross-cohort three-year graduation rate of 53 percent.  In an independent study by MDRC using a random assignment design, ASAP students were found to have nearly double the three-year associate degree graduation rate of control group students.  Furthermore, an external cost-benefit study found that despite higher up-front costs, the average cost per three-year ASAP graduate is lower than for comparison group graduates.  This analysis extends the evaluation of ASAP to explore the ways that ASAP may impact later post-secondary trajectories. 

Using a six year timeframe, this paper examines the rate at which ASAP students transfer to baccalaureate programs and earn bachelor’s degrees, focusing on longer term academic outcomes.  It also includes a closer examination of time-to-degree, delving into the question of whether ASAP helps students get a degree who would not get one at all or whether it reduces the amount of time it takes to get a degree for students who would have otherwise earned a degree over a longer period.  Finally, it explores the potential impact of ASAP participation on baccalaureate success for those who transfer.  Administrative data from the CUNY Office of Institutional Research and Assessment and the National Student Clearinghouse were used to track enrollment and degrees at both CUNY and non-CUNY institutions.   Propensity score analysis techniques were used to match ASAP students to similar students and to control for factors that may impact long term academic success.  This rich longitudinal data set and combination of methods helps us better understand the longer term impact of ASAP and the ways in which programs at community colleges can help support students to achieve their longer term goals of bachelor’s degree attainment.  Results from this study will help inform the national dialogue around policies that can be implemented to help students who start in community colleges prepare to be successful once they transfer and as they pursue their longer term academic goals.