The Chronicle of Higher Education featured CUNY's new plan to increase graduation rates at community colleges. According to Karin Fischer's article:

"New York City will spend $20-million over the next three years on an ambitious program at the City University of New York to increase graduation rates at its six community colleges.

"Under the plan, announced last week by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg in his State of the City speech, the university system will identify 1,000 newly admitted, low-income students interested in studying in fields in which there are local employment needs. Groups of students will study and take classes together and will be provided with tutors and mentors. CUNY will also place the students in part-time jobs related to their fields of study.

"The goal of the plan, known as Accelerated Study in Associated Programs, is for 50 percent of the participants to graduate and find employment within three years of beginning college, and for 75 percent to do so within four years, said Selma Botman, the university's executive vice chancellor for academic affairs"…

"Thomas R. Bailey, director of the Community College Research Center at Columbia University's Teachers College, said one key to the program's effectiveness would be whether the university system could find appropriate work-based learning opportunities for the students. A more fundamental measure of success will be whether the program changes the overall operation of the community colleges, not simply the educational experience of the 1,000 students selected to participate, he said."…

--Subscribers of 'The Chronicle of Higher Education' can read this article in its entirety at:  http://chronicle.com/daily/2007/01/2007012205n.htm