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. 

One key to the program's effectiveness is whether the university can find appropriate work-based learning opportunities for the students, said Thomas R. Bailey, director of the Community College Research Center at Columbia University's Teachers College. A more fundamental measure of success, he said, is whether the program changes the overall operation of the community colleges, not simply the educational experience of the 1,000 students selected to participate.  Mr. Bailey said that he did not know of any other community-college system that has combined all of the elements of the CUNY program, but that some of the individual components had shown promise in improving student success at colleges in the system and elsewhere. This article appeared in the January 29, 2007 edition of the Chronicle. http://chronicle.com/free/v53/i22/22a01701.htm