GEOFF BENNETT: Community colleges can be a catapult to economic mobility, dramatically increasing earnings.

And almost all of them are open admission.

But most of the students that start degree programs do not complete them on time, and many don't finish at all.

Hari Sreenivasan reports on a program that is spreading nationally to increase community college graduation rates.

It's part of our series Rethinking College.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Blessing Henderson is about halfway through an associate's degree in culinary arts and business at Cincinnati State.

BLESSING HENDERSON, College Student: When I'm in the kitchen, I'm in my zone.

Like, I love it.

HARI SREENIVASAN: The 28-year-old is on campus here three days a week.

She takes a full-time course load and balances school with a part-time job and being a single mom to a 12- and 5-year-old.

BLESSING HENDERSON: I'm here from 9:00 in the morning until 6:00 p.m. sometimes, so... HARI SREENIVASAN: But you can't cook over Zoom.

BLESSING HENDERSON: I can't cook over Zoom.

So I have to be here.

(LAUGHTER) BLESSING HENDERSON: So it does get stressful.

It's a lot of hours.

HARI SREENIVASAN: But despite balancing all those commitments, Henderson is on track to finish her degree in two years, a feat that less than 20 percent of community college students manage in the United States.

She says a big reason is being in a program called CState Accelerate.

BLESSING HENDERSON: I couldn't drive up here on a donut.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Tammie Larkins is the program's director.

TAMMIE LARKINS, Director, CState Accelerate: We're able to mitigate some of those barriers and make the road just a little bit easier.

HARI SREENIVASAN: The program is open to full-time Pell Grant-eligible students, meaning they come from lower-income households, and covers all tuition and fees not covered by financial aid.

Primarily funded with philanthropic donations, the program costs about $1,750 per student per year.

BLESSING HENDERSON: When I graduate, I won't owe anything.

It's, like, too good to be true.

I couldn't believe it.

But that's one of the greatest -- that's the selling point.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Yes.

BLESSING HENDERSON: And then everything else is like a bonus to the package.

So... HARI SREENIVASAN: Those bonuses include help with books and gas and even the occasional emergency expense, which makes a huge difference for Henderson, who lives in Dayton, Ohio, and commutes an hour each way.

BLESSING HENDERSON: I have a flat tire.

So I have been borrowing my mom's car to get here.

And CState has offered to help me get my tire fixed.

So, with that, is it's a load off my back, because I was wondering, like, what am I going to do?

HARI SREENIVASAN: Each student in the program also gets access to a counselor called a triage coordinator.

TAMMIE LARKINS: So our triage coordinators are like your own personal life coach, whether it's just, who am I supposed to be talking to now?

What are my next steps?

What should I be doing?

Or it could be, I'm doing so well in this class, and I just need a lift-me-up, more than an accountability partner and more than a coach.

They are your person.

MICKI HARRIS, College Student: For me, they're honestly second parents.

They have been there for me when I was at my lowest.

And I don't know what I would do without them.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Micki Harris is studying electrical engineering technology at CState and will finish an associate's degree next may, after four years in the military and a couple of failed attempts at college.

MICKI HARRIS: College has always been like really, really hard for me.

I did well in high school, but high school and college are like two different things, like on two different spectrums.

And I kind of just like controlling my own schedule and scheduling my own classes.

And just kind of figuring out where things lie and what I wanted to do for the rest of my life was very intimidating.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Harris credits the CState Accelerate program with getting on track.

MICKI HARRIS: They have helped me not only emotionally and financially, but they have just been such a big family to me.

HARI SREENIVASAN: The Accelerate program here at Cincinnati State is not a new idea.

In fact, it was modeled on a program from New York City that showed so much progress that we told you about it seven years ago.

Only 17 percent of CUNY's full-time community college students get a degree in three years.

For ASAP students, the rate is 57 percent.

ASAP stands for Accelerated Study in Associate Programs.

And since we visited in 2016, the program has only grown.

Christine Brongniart runs ASAP for the City University of New York.

CHRISTINE BRONGNIART, University Executive Director, CUNY ASAP: We started with a small cohort of 1,200 students in 2007.

And now we are serving 42 percent of the full-time associate degree-seeking population across CUNY.

HARI SREENIVASAN: As ASAP has expanded, those who are in the program graduate within three years at more than double the rate of those who are not.

ALEX MAYER, Director For Postsecondary Education, MDRC: There's millions of community college students and there's about 1,000 community colleges in the country.

And so this program could really be a game-changer for students in and around the country.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Alex Mayer is the director of postsecondary education at MDRC, a nonprofit research organization that has performed randomized control studies on the ASAP model to test its effectiveness.

ALEX MAYER: This approach really gives very high confidence that the program is working.

And, even now, we have just released findings after eight years.

And the students are continuing to graduate at higher rates than the students in the control group.

CHRISTINE BRONGNIART: We really wanted to continue to test the evidence, meaning we wanted to see if we could take this model, knowing how effective it's been in this very particular CUNY context.

And we wanted to see if these findings hold in other implementation contexts, such as in Ohio.

And that's really where we started with our replication work.

HARI SREENIVASAN: In 2015, versions of ASAP were rolled out at three Ohio community colleges, including Cincinnati State.

While there was some adaptation allowed, gas cards, instead of public transportation cards, for instance, the idea was to maintain the fidelity of the model.

Monica Posey is the president of Cincinnati State.

MONICA POSEY, President, Cincinnati State: We knew what we were doing was making a difference.

We heard it from the students.

We saw it at our commencement, but to actually get the validated study was really awesome.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Like in New York, students in the demonstration programs in Ohio graduated at nearly double the rate as those not in the program.

But, despite the success at Cincinnati State, Accelerate wound down in 2018 after the three year study was over.

MONICA POSEY: We had to stop the program.

We just did not have the funds in the institution to continue it.

ALEX MAYER: Community colleges, they're doing a lot for their students, but they're typically underfunded.

The challenge is being able to support the community colleges to implement the program and to implement what we know has been effective.

HARI SREENIVASAN: But the cost has not fully stopped Cincinnati State.

The college restarted the program in the fall of 2021, after raising $3.5 million from donors.

TAMMIE LARKINS: That return on investment will provide economic growth and upward mobility for this region.

As we know, as students graduate, that increases employability and changes the whole trajectory of their lives.

HARI SREENIVASAN: That upward trajectory is in the data as well.

Last month, a new study showed that those who took part in the original Ohio demonstration were earning 11 percent more compared to those in the control group.

It's a finding that CUNY's Christine Brongniart says adds to the evidence that this model works and should be rolled out beyond the seven states where versions are up and running.

CHRISTINE BRONGNIART: We're working now to work more with state systems at scale, versus working more ad hoc with individualized colleges.

HARI SREENIVASAN: At the CState Accelerate office on campus, student Blessing Henderson says that, in addition to the financial aid and counseling, the program creates a sense of community.

BLESSING HENDERSON: When you walk in, everyone's smiling.

They're always happy to see you.

I don't know.

I think it's -- I think it's honest.

(LAUGHTER) BLESSING HENDERSON: They do a good job of faking it if they don't.

It's just happy.

Everybody's like family.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Somebody that's kind of in your corner for you.

BLESSING HENDERSON: Yes.

Being in college has expanded my horizons and my mental -- just how I communicate, the way I think about things.

So I don't know what I'm going to do after this.

I just hope to keep going, though.

HARI SREENIVASAN: For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Hari Sreenivasan in Cincinnati, Ohio.