The Graduation Paradox: Why CUNY’s Gold-Standard Support Program Failed to Boost Earnings

For years, the City University of New York’s (CUNY) Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP) has been held up as the "gold standard" of higher education reform. Designed to combat the high dropout rates that plague community colleges across the United States, the program offers a suite of intensive support services—mandatory advising, tutoring, and financial aid for textbooks and transportation—to ensure students cross the graduation finish line.

While the program has been undeniably successful in its primary mission—boosting degree completion rates—a sobering 14-year longitudinal study released last month has surfaced a troubling disconnect. Despite a significant increase in the number of degrees earned, ASAP graduates are not seeing the corresponding "earnings premium" typically associated with a college diploma. This revelation has sent shockwaves through the educational policy community, forcing a re-evaluation of what it truly takes to transition from the classroom to the middle class.

The Genesis of ASAP: A Response to a Crisis

The landscape of American community colleges in the mid-2000s was characterized by a "revolving door" phenomenon. Millions of students were enrolling, incurring debt, and dropping out without a credential, leaving them with few skills and even fewer prospects for advancement.

In 2007, CUNY launched ASAP to disrupt this cycle. The program was built on the philosophy that low-income students needed more than just a tuition waiver; they needed an ecosystem of support. By requiring students to meet regularly with advisors and providing a stipend for their basic expenses, CUNY aimed to remove the structural barriers that forced students to abandon their education in favor of low-wage work.

A Chronology of Success and Scrutiny

• 2007: CUNY launches the pilot phase of ASAP.
• 2010: A randomized controlled trial (RCT) begins, tracking 900 low-income students. This study serves as the definitive test for the program’s efficacy.
• 2013: Initial three-year results show a massive 18-percentage-point lead in graduation rates for the ASAP group compared to the control group.
• 2015: Replications of the program begin in Ohio and Westchester County, showing that the model works across diverse demographics and geographies.
• 2017–2023: The program undergoes massive scaling. Today, over 90 colleges in 11 states have adopted some variation of the ASAP model.
• 2024: MDRC releases the 14-year follow-up study, revealing the "earnings gap"—or lack thereof.

The Data: A Tale of Two Metrics

The effectiveness of a social program is often measured by its ROI (Return on Investment). For years, the ROI of ASAP was measured in degrees. The 2024 MDRC report confirms that the degree advantage is real, even if it has narrowed over time. Among the original cohort, 58 percent of ASAP participants earned at least an associate degree, compared to 50 percent of the control group.

However, when researchers mapped those participants against New York state employment data over 14 years, the financial picture changed. The average annual income for both the ASAP participants and the control group settled at roughly $37,000.

Why the Earnings Gap Remains Flat

The "puzzle," as researchers have dubbed it, suggests several factors at play:

1. Field of Study Disparities: In 2010, the ASAP program steered many students into the liberal arts. While these students earned degrees, those degrees often did not align with high-growth, high-wage sectors like nursing or radiologic technology.
2. The Opportunity Cost of Graduation: While ASAP students were busy completing their degrees, some individuals in the control group—those who dropped out—may have entered the workforce earlier. Over a decade, these individuals had more time to accumulate on-the-job experience, promotions, and seniority in retail or service management, effectively narrowing the wage gap.
3. The "Bachelor’s Degree" Ceiling: Many associate degrees are intended to be stepping stones to bachelor’s degrees, which generally offer a much higher lifetime earnings premium. However, the study found that ASAP had almost no impact on bachelor’s degree completion rates, with only a marginal 3 percent of participants accelerating their path to a four-year degree.

Official Responses and Institutional Strategy

The disconnect between graduation success and wage growth has prompted a spirited debate among educators, policymakers, and philanthropists.

Christine Brongniart, executive director of CUNY’s ASAP program, defends the current model. She argues that the goal of the program is to provide students with the credential they seek, not to dictate their career paths or limit their choices to "high-demand" fields. "Our mission is to help students complete degrees in the field of their choice," she maintains, emphasizing that a degree holds intrinsic value that goes beyond a paycheck.

Conversely, some institutions are pivoting. In North Carolina, the "NC Boost" program—an adaptation of the ASAP model—explicitly targets workforce-aligned majors. By excluding liberal arts from the incentive structure, these colleges hope to ensure that the time and effort invested by students directly translate into the labor market demands of the 21st century.

The Role of Philanthropy

The research community is cautious about abandoning the model entirely. Arnold Ventures, a major funder of the ASAP expansion, has issued a statement urging patience. They point to the Ohio study, which found that the program did yield earnings gains in that specific labor market. "Single studies rarely provide complete answers," the foundation noted, suggesting that the effectiveness of the program may be highly dependent on the local economic ecosystem.

Implications: The Long Road to the Middle Class

The CUNY study serves as a humbling reminder for the higher education sector. For decades, the "college-for-all" narrative assumed that a degree was a golden ticket. Today, the reality is far more nuanced.

1. The Need for Career-Integrated Education

The most significant takeaway for current administrators is the necessity of "career-informing" the advising process. CUNY has already begun to update its approach, requiring students to engage with resume workshops, job fairs, and career planning early in their tenure. The hope is that by helping students identify a "Plan B" that is financially viable, the program will produce graduates who are better prepared for the volatility of the modern job market.

2. Redefining "Success"

If the goal of community college is to lift students into the middle class, the metric of "graduation" is clearly insufficient. Policymakers must look at the entire lifecycle of the student. Does the curriculum align with regional industry needs? Is there a clear path to a bachelor’s degree if the associate degree proves insufficient?

3. The Cost-Benefit Calculus

With the program costing roughly $3,400 per student annually, taxpayers are investing over $76 million a year into the CUNY ASAP initiative. When an intervention of this magnitude fails to move the needle on long-term earnings, it forces a difficult conversation about how to allocate scarce public resources.

Conclusion: Beyond the Finish Line

The success of the ASAP program in graduating students is a victory for educational equity; it proves that with enough support, students from disadvantaged backgrounds can and will succeed academically. However, the 14-year data highlights that graduation is merely a milestone, not the finish line.

As the program continues to expand, it must evolve from a "completion-focused" model to a "career-integrated" model. For the thousands of students currently enrolled in these programs, the goal is not just to hold a piece of paper, but to secure a foothold in the economy. The path to a middle-class life is rarely a straight line, and as this research shows, helping students cross the graduation stage is only the first, albeit essential, step in a much longer, more complicated journey.