NEW YORK CITY — As a freshman, Shalini Doodnauth had no intention of going to school full time at City University of New York.

“How am I going to afford it? How am I going to afford my own MetroCard and pay for books?”

Then, she learned about ASAP, Accelerated Studies in Associate Programs. When she needed help paying for a $300 textbook, ASAP paid. The program provided her a MetroCard. And when she struggled in her accounting classes, ASAP supplied a tutor.....

.....Six years after the program started, 63.6% of ASAP first-time freshman had earned an associate degree, bachelor’s degree, or both, compared to 43.3% of students who were not enrolled in ASAP, according to data from CUNY.....

.....In an independent evaluation in 2015, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research and social policy organization called MDRC (formerly the Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation, but MDRC since 2003) offered this observation of outcomes: “ASAP’s effects are the largest MDRC has found in any of its evaluations of community college reforms”.....

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