….To ensure more students take that path, the North Carolina Community College System is launching a new program focused on degree completion for high-wage, high-demand careers.

The Boost program is modeled after the highly successful CUNY ASAP program in New York City, and will be the first-ever attempt to adapt that model of financial support and high-touch advising across an entire state. It’s also the first replication of ASAP to focus heavily on workforce needs—and will complement a new funding formula North Carolina rolled out early last year.

With a $35.6M grant from Arnold Ventures, the program will kick off with eight colleges this year, followed by seven more in 2026. It’s the largest-ever private grant received by the North Carolina Community College System, as well as the largest-ever private investment in a CUNY ASAP replication—a sign of optimism about its potential….

….Programs such as ASAP and Boost aren’t cheap. The original CUNY ASAP model cost about $14K more per student, but had a lower cost per on-time degree, as substantially more students graduate within three years, according to an analysis by the research organization MDRC. With time, Brongniart says, the costs for CUNY have diminished as the program has achieved greater economies of scale, and the college system has received significant funding from the city and state as they proved the success of the model.

North Carolina community college leaders hope to get similar state investment when the Arnold Ventures grant ends in five years.

Longer-term studies of CUNY ASAP have found sustained results. MDRC’s research has found that on-time graduation is especially high—with a three-year graduation rate that is 18 percentage points higher than for other students. But at the six-year mark, graduation rates are still 10 percentage points higher.

MDRC says it was the greatest impact of a community college intervention that MDRC has studied. And the impact hasn’t just been confined to CUNY. Other colleges that have replicated the model have seen similar gains. A new report from MDRC studying a replication at SUNY Westchester Community College, for example, saw three-year graduation rates rise by 12 percentage points for program participants. The number is especially remarkable given that most of the study period took place during the height of the COVID pandemic.

MDRC has also begun studying the impact of these programs on wages. A program in Ohio led to an 11 percent increase in earnings six years after students began the program compared to their peers who were not enrolled.

“What CUNY ASAP does that makes such a big difference for students is the package of services where they treat the whole student, in terms of encouraging them to enroll full time, giving them the message that it’s really important to take care of your developmental courses early and stay enrolled, but then also provides all these wraparound supports,” says Colleen Sommo, a senior fellow researching postsecondary education at MDRC. “It’s not a one-semester intervention.…It’s really seeing students from start to finish….”

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