Accelerating Community College Graduation Rates: A Benefit–Cost Analysis

Abstract

This article reports a benefit-cost evaluation of the Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP) of the City University of New York (CUNY). ASAP was designed to accelerate associate degree completion within 3 years of degree enrollment at CUNY's community colleges. The program evaluation revealed that the completion rate for the examined cohort increased from 24.1% to 54.9%, and cost per graduate declined considerably (Levin & Garcia, 2012;Linderman & Kolenovic, 2012). The returns on investment to the taxpayer include the benefits from higher tax revenues and lower costs of spending on public health, criminal justice, and public assistance. For each dollar of investment in ASAP by taxpayers, the return was $3 to $4. For each additional graduate, the taxpayer gained an amount equal to a certificate of deposit with a value of $146,000 (net of the costs of the investment). Based on these estimated returns, a cohort of 1,000 students enrolled in ASAP would generate net fiscal benefits for the taxpayer of more than $46 million relative to enrolling in the conventional degree program. ASAP results demonstrate that an effective educational policy can generate returns to the taxpayer that vastly exceed the public investment required.

Supporting Community College Students from Start to Degree Completion: Long-Term Evidence from a Randomized Trial of CUNY’s ASAP

“…25 When considering ASAP's costs (some of which are transfers, 26 like the tuition waiver and textbook voucher, and others of which are real social costs, like the enhanced advising and tutoring), it is also important to consider the economic and social benefits of the program, beyond the direct academic benefits described above. Levin and García (2017) monetize and project such benefits, relying on literature on the estimated returns to an associate degree. Monetized benefits include potentially greater earnings for students, increased tax revenues, reduced public health spending, reduced use of the criminal justice system, and reduced use of public assistance.…”

“…Since ASAP serves students, the student perspective is of obvious importance. The taxpayer perspective is also worth consideration because CUNY's ASAP is mainly funded from public sources; moreover, Levin and García (2017) note that "On the basis of the program's promise … CUNY considered the expansion of the program … To guide this decision, it was necessary to ascertain whether ASAP was a good investment for the taxpayer by examining whether the benefits of investing in ASAP exceeded the costs." From the taxpayer perspective, a program that benefits its clients and has monetary benefits that exceed the monetary costs to the taxpayer is usually a wise investment.…”

“…Projecting the net monetary benefit to taxpayers requires strong assumptions and the estimates are imprecise. Nonetheless, in an attempt to consider the net benefit to taxpayers, we can utilize Levin and García's (2017) estimate of the taxpayer 25 Moreover, we are cautious about over interpreting cost per outcome across studies. If a payee (e.g., government, society, etc.)…”

“…27 Calculated as $205,514 × 0.104 − $14,028 = $7,345 . 28 Levin and García (2017) state that their taxpayer benefit per associate's degree is "conservative" (meaning downward biased), which could increase the net benefits. Counterbalancing this, we assume that the 10 percentage point graduation effects will be maintained, which likely results in upward bias, given the observed trend in estimated effects on graduation.…”

“…There is likely additional uncertainty because our basic analyses do not account for the estimate that 41 percent of the ASAP sample earned a degree, on average, 1 year earlier than they would have, which would increase the net benefit somewhat. They also do not account for the fact that Levin and García's (2017) taxpayer benefit was derived for 3-year graduation rates for 23-year-olds, rather than 6-year graduation rates for 26-year-olds, which would decrease the net benefits somewhat.…”