Washington Monthly - September/October 2020 - 38

ating in three years. The resulting program was named CUNY
Accelerated Study in Associate Programs, or ASAP.
It worked. Students in the program graduated in three
years at nearly double the rate of other CUNY students attempting to attend full-time-40 percent compared to 22 percent. Students in the program also transferred to four-year colleges at a higher rate than students not in the program. And
the program was evaluated with an uncommon degree of rigor.
MDRC, a nonpartisan, nonprofit research group, ran the randomized control trial, with 896 students participating, and produced a 155-page report of the results.

whom operate on fine margins, weren't rushing to implement it. A bevy of foundations, such as the Ford Foundation,
the Kresge Foundation, Arnold Ventures, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Lumina Foundation (the latter four of which have given grants to this nonprofit magazine), chipped in funds to replicate the program elsewhere,
for a trial period of three years. Again, it would be rigorously
evaluated by MDRC. In 2014, three Ohio community colleges
signed up to host the program: Lorain County Community
College, Cincinnati State Technical and Community College,
and Cuyahoga Community College.

The study made a splash. The New York Times wrote up
the findings, and its editorial board highlighted them, too. The
Obama administration cited the CUNY program's success, calling on all community colleges to take similar steps as part of
their broader proposal to increase the number of Americans
getting degrees. "I've not seen any other interventions with
as large effects as CUNY ASAP," Thomas Brock, director of the
Community College Research Center at Teachers College, Columbia University, told me. "It really stands alone." Funds to
continue the program were added to the New York City mayor's budget.
The question remained, though, could this work elsewhere? Community colleges across the country, most of
38 September/October 2020

Christine Abate was at Tri-C during this evaluation period, as was Kevin Jones. Jones had begun taking courses
at the Tri-C Eastern Campus in 2016 after deciding that his
roofing job was taking too much of a toll on his body. The
program connected him with advisers who he says felt like
family. "They were my aunties," said Jones, now 25 and a
transfer student at Case Western Reserve University, where
he is studying artificial intelligence and cultural history with
an eye toward going to law school to become an attorney in
intellectual property. "When you come from that Black cultural experience, it's really nice to have someone you can
latch onto and have that familial type of connection with,"
he said. "And [Degree in Three] was the way they were able

Maddie McGarvey

Signature achievement: Kevin Jones signs in for an advising session through Degree in Three, a program that doubles graduation rates.

Washington Monthly - September/October 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Washington Monthly - September/October 2020