Playing New York City’s ACE Card - Expanding Economic Mobility by Scaling CUNY’s Small but Powerful Accelerate, Complete, Engage (ACE) Program

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Rhys

A report examines how CUNY’s Accelerate, Complete, and Engage (ACE) program—modeled on ASAP—improves bachelor’s-degree completion for students at New York City’s senior colleges. It highlights strong early outcomes, including higher four-year graduation rates and reduced achievement gaps across student subgroups. The report quantifies limited participation since 2015 and argues for substantially scaling ACE to match ASAP coverage. It links bachelor’s attainment to wage premiums and documents major disparities by race and neighborhood to support expanded investment.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages11

Reading Time28 min

AccessFree to download

Program model and purpose

Outcomes and impact on graduation

Participation scale and funding

Equity and labor-market context

Wage premium and job requirements

Disparities in bachelor’s attainment by race and area

Recommendations for scaling ACE

Report-March 2023 Playing New York City’s ACE Card Few student success programs nationally have been as effective as CUNY’s Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP) initiative, which has grown to serve 25,000 community college students. CUNY has a promising program modeled on ASAP that is helping students at senior colleges complete their bachelor’s degrees on time: the Accelerate, Complete, and Engage (ACE) program. But the ACE program has considerable room to grow. by Olivia Bensimon and Eli Dvorkin Playing New York City’s ACE Card: Expanding Economic Mobility by Scaling CUNY’s Small but Powerful Accelerate, Complete, Engage (ACE) Program Few student success programs nationally have been as effective as CUNY’s Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP) initiative, which has more than doubled timely graduation rates for students enrolled in associate’s degree programs. The program’s phenomenal success has led to increased funding from city policymakers, enabling the once-small ASAP initiative to grow to a level where it now serves 25,000 community college students across the five boroughs. It's now time to ramp up similar efforts for students attending CUNY’s four-year colleges. Indeed, although CUNY’s senior colleges post higher graduation rates, their students also struggle with college success—with the greatest challenges typically facing students with the fewest resources. Just 36.2 percent of full-time, first-time bachelor’s degree-seeking students at CUNY senior colleges graduate in four years; for Black and Hispanic students, the four-year graduation rate is 27.5 percent. For Black men, the graduation rate is 17.8 percent. Four-year graduation rates range from 57.5 percent at 1 Baruch College to 16.1 percent at Medgar Evers and just 7.3 percent at City Tech. CUNY has a promising program modeled on ASAP that is helping students complete their bachelor’s degrees on time. Like ASAP, the Accelerate, Complete, and Engage (ACE) program, launched in 2015, provides students attending CUNY’s senior colleges with a mix of services and financial help that has proven to be critical in helping the university’s mostly low-income students persist in college and earn a credential: intensive academic advisement, career development, tuition scholarships, textbooks, and transportation assistance. Also like ASAP, the ACE program is already proving remarkably successful. According to a recent evaluation, four-year graduation rates among ACE students at John Jay College were 16 percentage points higher than among the comparison 2 group: 58.4 percent compared to 42.1 percent—an increase of nearly 39 percent. Subsequent cohorts have registered similarly impressive results. Importantly, the data also shows that ACE has benefited all subgroups of students, narrowing achievement gaps by ethnicity and race. But the ACE program has considerable room to grow. Just 2,800 students have participated in the ACE program since 2015, according to CUNY’s August 2022 ACE Evaluation Brief—a tiny fraction (3 percent) of the 93,305 students enrolled full-time in baccalaureate programs at CUNY’s senior colleges. Through the support of the NYC Juneteenth Economic Justice Plan announced in June 2021, ACE has expanded to four additional CUNY colleges in the spring and fall of 2022: College of Staten Island, New York City College of Technology, York College, and Queens College. In total, the mayor and City Council allocated $8.26 million to support ACE in FY 2023, enabling the program to support about 2,880 students this year. But while this city funding has provided an important boost to the program, this is still a drop in the bucket. At a time when a college credential has become increasingly critical to accessing well-paying jobs, but when far too many of those entering CUNY’s four-year schools are leaving without a degree, New York City and State leaders should greatly scale up the ACE program. By growing CUNY ACE to rea

FAQs

What is the ACE program and what services does it provide?

ACE is designed to help CUNY senior-college students persist and earn credentials by combining intensive academic advisement, career development, tuition scholarships, textbooks, and transportation assistance.

How successful has ACE been so far?

Evaluations show ACE students at John Jay College have four-year graduation rates 16 percentage points higher than the comparison group, with results improving across subsequent cohorts and helping narrow achievement gaps.

Why does the report call for scaling up ACE?

ACE participation has remained small since 2015, and many students still leave four-year programs without degrees. The report argues that expanding ACE would increase bachelor’s completion and generate major lifetime earnings while addressing inequities across race and neighborhoods.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Rhys