The City University of New York’s Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP) has gotten a great deal of positive attention in the last few years, and for good reason. The program provides much-needed additional economic, advising, and social supports to community college students from low-income families, and a new evaluation of a randomized trial from MDRC found that ASAP increased three-year associate’s degree completion rates from 22% in the control group to 40% in the treatment group. I’m glad to see that the program will be expanded to three community colleges in Ohio, as this will help address concerns about the feasibility of scaling up the program to cover more students.
But it is important to recognize that ASAP, as currently constituted, is limited to students who are able and willing to attend college full-time. Full-time students are the minority at community colleges, and full-time students tend to be more economically and socially advantaged than their part-time peers. As currently constructed, ASAP would direct a higher percentage of resources to full-time students, even though part-time students likely need support more than full-time students. (However, it’s worth noting that although part-time students count in some states’ performance-based funding systems, they are currently not counted in federal graduation rate metrics.)
Students in ASAP also get priority registration privileges, which can certainly contribute to on-time degree completion. But it is not uncommon for classes (at least at desirable times) to have waiting lists, meaning that ASAP students get access to courses while other students do not. If a part-time student cannot get access to a course that he or she needs, it could mean that the student is forced to stop out of college for a semester—a substantial risk factor for degree completion.
ASAP has many promising aspects, but further study is needed to see if the degree completion gains for full-time students are coming at the expense of part-time students. Some of the ASAP services should be extended to all students, and priority registration should be reconsidered to benefit students who are truly in need to getting into a course instead of those who are able to attend full-time.
Robert Kelchen 