28% of students who enter public community college graduate from that institution within 3 years and 62% who enter four-year public college graduate within 6 years.
A Peer-to-Peer Approach to Improving College Retention
CARA’s College Allies program addresses college retention for first-generation, low-income, and students of color by positioning trained college students to support their peers in persisting through obstacles to graduation. We do this by:
- Partnering with institutions of higher education and community-based organizations to develop and integrate a sustainable peer leadership model that can be scaled to expand student support efforts
- Providing Peer Leaders with 70+ hours of comprehensive training designed around clearly defined benchmarks that address the critical retention tasks first-year and transfer students face.
Through clearly defined benchmarks designed around critical retention tasks, during the academic year, Peer Leaders support students to develop campus navigational skills and ensure that they successfully integrate into their campus community. They do this through:
- Outreach to students via phone, text, virtual meetings, and in person
- Hosting one- on-one and small groups meetings
- Planning and facilitating targeted skill-building workshops and community building events
- Connecting students to online navigational tools and resources (e.g. degree audits, course registration, Blackboard)
Our peer leadership model also provides meaningful career exploration and development opportunities for peer leaders and supports our partners in developing a talent pipeline of well-trained candidates for counseling and advising roles.
College Allies Program Model
CARA provides Peer Leaders with 70+ hours of training where they develop the skills and knowledge to support students with critical retention tasks, help them to develop campus navigation skills, and ensure that they integrate into their campus community. Training includes, but is not limited to the following:
College Environment and Fit
• Promoting Academic Success
• Communicating with College Faculty
• Winter Freeze & End of Semester Tasks
• Supporting Students to Develop a Sense of BelongingPaying for College
• Understanding Sources of Financial Aid & Financial Aid Challenges
• FAFSA Refile Process
• Appeals, SAP and TAP
• Add/Drop/Withdraw and Financial ImplicationsNavigating College Systems
• Campus Vocabulary & Resources
• Landscape of College Access & Success
• Understanding and Overcoming Barriers to Academic Success
• Degree Planning
• Steps to Enrollment
• The Transfer ProcessCounseling & Communication Skills
• Counseling in the Context of Peer Leadership 1&2
• Data Tracking
• Student Outreach and Engagement Strategies
• Proactive Caseload Management
Career Pathway Development
• Supporting Students with Major/Career Exploration 1&2
• Professional CapacitiesPeer Leadership for College Success Core Competencies
Peer Leadership for College Access & Success Career Capacities
CARA collaborates with on-campus and community partners to help support the integration of Peer Leaders into existing retention programming.
CARA assists Peer Leader supervisors by providing professional development to:
- Support Peer Leaders day to day work and professional development using a youth development framework
- Develop a site based plan to integrate Peer Leaders into campus structures and practice
CARA supports campus leadership to integrate a peer-to-peer component into their student support and retention efforts campus-wide.
This includes:
- Consulting to program leadership to create a sustainable best practice peer-to-peer component of their model
- Supporting the development of data tracking and evaluation tools
- Developing systems to sustain Peer Leadership including hiring, training, supervision, scheduling, and securing stable sources of Peer Leader pay
How College Allies Works
See College Allies’s Program Rubric
See our Theory of Change Model
Hire and Support Peer Leaders
Recruit and hire peer leaders to work 10-12 hours/week
Pay Peer Leaders through college funding streams at minimum or above minimum wage
Position supervisor to conduct weekly supervision with Peer Leaders
Participate in Training & Evaluation
Ensure Peer Leaders and supervisors attend and participate in training
Track and share student outcomes with CARA
Ensure supervisors attend CARA’s professional development programming
Create Conditions for Peer Leaders to Work with Students
Ensure Peer Leaders have resources needed to conduct regular outreach to students and to meet one-on-one with them
Assign caseload of students to Peer Leaders each semester
Provide space and needed supplies for Peer Leader workshops and events
Collaborate with Advising and Student Support Offices
Integrate Peer Leaders into existing campus structures
Provide opportunities for Peer Leaders to collaborate with campus staff
Share relevant data and its implications
College Allies Reach
Sites and Partnerships
NYC College Partnerships
Community Based Organizations
- ExpandEd SYEP Summer Bridge Program (with Cypress Hills LDC, Good Shepherd Services, New Settlement & CUNY School for Professional Studies)
- Good Shepherd Services
- Student Leadership Network
College Partnerships Outside NYC
- Foundation for Tacoma Students: Tacoma Community College
- University System of Maryland (USM)