EdExplainer | What is CUNY ASAP, the model Boost will replicate at 15 N.C. community colleges?

The North Carolina Community College System (NCCCS) announced a new program called Boost in February 2025. The program is funded by Arnold Ventures and designed to increase community college students’ degree completion and transition into high-demand, high-earning careers. 

Boost will have a particular emphasis on contributing to North Carolina economies and labor markets. Eligible students will be required to be enrolled in degree programs the NCCCS’ proposed new funding model, Propel NC, identifies as being in-demand fields. 

The program will be the first time the model is adapted across an entire state — and is also the first replication that focuses heavily on the state’s workforce needs. 

Boost is a replication of the CUNY ASAP model, a nationally acclaimed and evidence-based program that has proven its ability to increase three-year community college graduation rates. 

Understanding where this model comes from and how it works can help us prepare for Boost’s rollout at the 15 North Carolina community colleges selected to participate in it over the next two years.

Where did the model and its replications come from?

Designed and launched by The City University of New York (CUNY), the Accelerated Program in Associate Study (ASAP) model is a complementary set of wraparound student services that are designed to help students earn their associate degree. 

More specifically, the services are meant to help students by addressing common challenges to their persistence and completion that occur outside of classrooms. 

CUNY, the nation’s largest urban public university and first free public institution of higher education, designed the model in the early 2000s in response to concerns about low graduation rates at the community colleges in their system. In 2007, CUNY’s community colleges’ three-year graduation rate was around 13% — lower than the national average at the time. 

To solve this problem, CUNY partnered with the New York City Mayor’s office to synthesize research on the most common challenges students face when completing their degrees. The team then used their findings to create the model.  

In the fall of 2007, CUNY launched the first cohorts of the ASAP model at each of their six community colleges. (Today, there are seven.) 

In 2009, CUNY asked MDRC, a nonpartisan research organization, to conduct an independent evaluation of their model. Between 2010 and 2013, MDRC researchers tracked the progress of CUNY ASAP students at three of the six community colleges in a randomized control trial (RCT) — considered the “gold standard” in the scientific research community. 

The research team’s findings were clear. The ASAP model nearly doubled three-year graduation rates: 40.1% of students who went through the ASAP program earned a degree compared to only 21.8% of students who did not experience the ASAP model. MDRC’s research team published their results in a now-seminal 2015 article. 

Early reports suggested the model would be a success and led to CUNY’s expanded partnership with MDRC. They also led to the first replication of the ASAP model outside of New York as the Ohio Department of Higher Education launched the ASAP model at three of its community colleges in 2014. 

MDRC released findings in 2020 from a three-year RCT of the Ohio cohorts and found similar results to the original CUNY ASAP cohorts: by the end of their third year, 35% of Ohio ASAP students had earned degrees compared to 19% of students who received normal college services. 

A new MDRC report released in April 2025 shows the model has long-term impacts. Eight years after the program ended, 46% of students in the ASAP model earned a degree compared to 31% of the control group students. According to the MDRC report, the fact that this effect persists years after the program ended suggests the model helps students earn degrees they wouldn’t have otherwise completed.

The 2015 and 2020 MDRC reports played a large part in launching the ASAP model into national higher education conversations, as its success in Ohio was evidence that the model can be replicated in states as different from each other as New York and Ohio. 

In 2014, CUNY launched the Accelerate, Complete, and Engage (ACE) program, which is the ASAP equivalent for four-year universities. In the same year, CUNY also launched the ASAP/ACE National Replication Collaborative, a knowledge network dedicated to helping colleges and universities replicate the models at their own institutions. 

According to the Replication Collaborative, as of 2025, the ASAP model has been replicated in California, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, West Virginia, and now North Carolina.

You can read more about the early timeline of the CUNY ASAP model here.

What exactly is the model? 

The ASAP model is designed to be a a three-year program with four core areas of targeted support: 

• High-quality student services
• Direct financial support
• Course enrollment 
• Program expectations that facilitate movement through the program

The figure below summarizes the four main elements of the ASAP model, according to MDRC researchers in their 2015 and 2020 reports on the original CUNY ASAP model and Ohio’s replication. 

In an article examining preliminary outcomes from the first CUNY ASAP cohort, educational researchers from CUNY and Columbia University explain the theoretical underpinnings of these core areas:  

“ASAP’s educational framework is rooted in a theory of action that assumes that college success is based in three interrelated constructs: students’ ability to gain and maintain academic momentum, the development of college integration and belonging, and the ability to access timely and relevant support services.” 

In other words, ASAP is based on the idea that while each core area independently supports a student, it is by working in tandem with one another over the course of three years that the model is able to so effectively address barriers to degree completion. 

High-quality student services

One pillar of the model is making sure students have access to quality academic services and resources. Perhaps most central to this component is the model’s emphasis on high-quality student advising.

In the first CUNY ASAP cohorts, students were required to visit their advisor twice a month and advisor caseloads were capped between 60 and 80 students. Later, the program changed to expand the caseload ratio to one advisor per 150 students, and students were only required to meet with advisors twice a month in their first year. After their first year, advisors decided how much advising the students needed, shifting the model to a more personalized advising approach. 

However, the core concept remained: The ASAP model prioritizes manageable advising caseloads and frequent advising check-ins to not just make sure students are on track to graduate, but also allow advisors to check-in on students’ overall wellbeing throughout their entire program. 

In addition to advising, students are also required to participate in dedicated ASAP tutoring and career development meetings. In the Ohio program, for example, students were required to either meet with campus career services staff members or attend a career services event once a semester. 

As far as tutoring goes, Ohio students were expected to visit a tutor if they were enrolled in a development course, on academic probation, or simply directed to by an advisor. According to the 2015 MDRC report, in the CUNY ASAP cohort students met with a tutor an average of 24 times during their first year. Similar students who weren’t in the ASAP cohort met with a tutor an average of seven times. 

Direct financial support

Another key pillar of the ASAP model is providing students with financial support. Students receive financial assistance to cover any tuition and fees that remain after financial aid. 

Textbook vouchers, or simply providing students with required textbooks, offset their out-of-pocket educational costs. 

The model also gives students financial assistance to offset other educational costs, like transportation. CUNY, for example, gives students monthly pre-loaded MetroCards to make sure they are able to actually get to campus. In Ohio, where public transportation is not as normal, students instead receive monthly $50 gift cards to use on gas or groceries. 

Course enrollment 

The model emphasizes making sure students have access to the courses they need to complete their degree. 

This looks like offering students early enrollment opportunities, saved seats in required courses, or consolidated “block” schedules. These elements also encourage students to stack classes and create more convenient class schedules to accommodate their busy lives. 

Class blocks also support ASAP’s cohort-based design. The idea is that when students take classes together, they build community, which is tied back to the important role students’ sense of belonging has in their degree completion.

Relatedly, the model also encourages first-year students to attend a first-year seminar that focuses on study skills and further encourages students to build relationships with their cohort. 

Program expectations 

Lastly, the ASAP model has requirements that encourage academic momentum and completion. The clearest example is requiring full-time enrollment from students in both fall and spring semesters. The program also strongly encourages students to graduate within three years. 

One key aspect here, and alluded to in tutoring services, is either requiring or strongly encouraging students to take developmental (math, reading, and writing skill-building) courses early on in their studies to make sure they have the fundamentals down and are able to succeed in later, more content-heavy classes. 

While these four areas are core parts of the model, it is important to note, too, that their implementation and actual uptake by students depends a lot on the specific community college in question. 

The Ohio programs, for example, had difficulty implementing block course schedules because administrators reported difficulty identifying which courses would be best to block off since many incoming students already had completed the courses that would have been blocked.

Bringing the model to North Carolina 

While North Carolina’s Boost program is still rolling out in the next several months at the first eight of the 15 participating community colleges, we can see now how some of the ASAP elements are starting to show up. 

A NCCCS press release shared that the program will work “through a combination of timely and relevant support, dedicated advising for students, and incentives to accelerate their education,” an example that explicitly mentions high-quality advising and alludes to financial support. The NCCCS Boost program website also references “investing in breaking down barriers students might face in completing their education quickly.” 

Work Shift reported in April that Boost students will be required to meet with advisors, will receive a $100 monthly financial incentive for up to eight months to meet this requirement, receive a $600 annual stipend for textbooks, and have their tuition and fees waived — all of which are components of the ASAP model.

Participating community colleges have begun to list eligibility requirements on their websites for students interested in participating in the program. Forsyth Technical Community College, for example, lists that students must “be able to complete college-level math and English requirements within their first academic year,” referencing the model’s requirements on developmental courses. 

Of course, one of the biggest differences between previous ASAP replications and the Boost program is its incorporation of the proposed Propel NC funding model. Students will have to be enrolled in an eligible program aligned to the model’s identified high-demand, high-wage areas, including biotechnology, health care, engineering and advanced manufacturing, and information technology. 

So far, West Virginia’s Ascend program has been the only ASAP replication that closely aligns itself with a state’s workforce development goals. The two participating institutions — Blue Ridge Community and Technical College (BRCTC) and West Virginia University at Parkersburg — were part of a $4.2 million dollar replication grant also funded by Arnold Ventures that focused on aligning students in occupational programs with high-wage jobs. 

While reports on the programs’ success are not yet available, one West Virginian adult learner’s experience with the program is a positive indication for North Carolina’s future Boost students.

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Editor’s note: Arnold Ventures supports the work of EducationNC.