Providing students with wraparound support is one evidence-based practice that has demonstrated impact on student credit accumulation, persistence and graduation rates. In the mid-2000s, the City University of New York created a model of student support that has been duplicated at dozens of colleges to improve outcomes; now the State University of New York system hopes to build on this success on its own campuses.

In 2018, Westchester Community College became the first SUNY campus to adopt CUNY’s initiative, which WCC calls Viking Resources for Obtaining Associate Degrees and Success (Viking ROADS). A March 2025 report from the nonprofit education-research group MDRC highlights the success of Viking ROADS during its initial three years: a 12-percentage-point increase in graduation rates among participants, despite headwinds from remote instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The background: CUNY created Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP) in 2007 as a comprehensive initiative to address barriers to student retention and completion.

The core components of ASAP are personalized academic advising, specialized enrollment options and financial aid for course material and transportation costs for three years.

Over the past decade, ASAP-inspired programs have been implemented at over a dozen institutions in seven states. WCC president Belinda Miles was a part of the ASAP replication initiative in Ohio in 2014, so when she began her role at WCC in 2015, “it wasn’t too long before I ran into ASAP,” she said.

The Arnold Foundation and MDRC, along with an anonymous donor to the WCC Foundation, provided financial support for the launch of Viking ROADS….

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