The Robin Hood Foundation sponsored the College Success Prize competition in 2014 to encourage the development of technology-based interventions to help New York City-based community college students—especially those in need of remediation—complete college. Of the 104 teams submitting applications for the competition, two were selected as finalists:

• Beyond 12, which entered its MyCoach app into the competition; and
• Kinvolved, which entered its Campus Kit app into the competition.

The Robin Hood Foundation engaged Abt Global in 2014 to conduct a randomized control trial to assess the effects of the two finalists’ apps on community college students’ persistence and completion.

Abt found no evidence that either app had an effect on the persistence and attainment of an associate’s degree for students who tested into remediation when they entered college. For students who did not test into remediation, Abt found that both apps had significant impacts on their persistence from year 1 to year 2, and one of the apps had an impact on students’ attainment of an associate’s degree or transfer to a four-year college.