Fall 2025 Updates
On April 22, 2025, Roadmap 2.0 team members and institutional leadership from CPS, CCC, and UIC gathered on the UIC campus with the larger community to formally launch Chicago Roadmap 2.0. Since the announcement five months ago, teams from the three partner institutions have been busy meeting and planning for the first cohort of potential pathways students who have enrolled at CCC this Fall 2025. Philanthropic funding has been secured granting us the necessary support to proceed with our project for the next two years. We have sought additional funds that, if awarded, will supplement the first two years and will support an extension of philanthropic funding for the project into a third year.
Work is now underway to establish the project and its five key activities:
Activity 1: Establish Collaborative Agreements – The seven colleges within CCC now participate along with many other IL community colleges as partners in the UIC Transfer Admission Guarantee (TAG) program; a new agreement is underway to establish a guaranteed admission pathway directly from CPS to UIC for eligible students; and a third agreement establishing the three-way partnership between CPS/CCC/UIC that makes up Chicago Roadmap 2.0 is also in the works.
Activity 2: Transfer Pathways – Six distinct pathways, representing twelve UIC baccalaureate degrees, have been established and published on the UIC Chicago Roadmap 2.0 website. When followed, these prescribed pathways deliver examples of a transparent path to graduation with zero credit loss. Additional representative pathways from a sampling of degree programs across the undergraduate colleges will be identified and brought online over time.
Activity 3: Degree Planning Portal (DPP) – The Data Working Group comprised of staff from TADA, U of I System AITS, and a computer programmer from our vendor have been working together to pull real transfer course articulations and degree requirements out of uAchieve for population within the DPP, allowing users to receive a transfer analysis for all courses input, and generate a term-by-term degree plan for all remaining UIC baccalaureate degree requirements. A complete end-to-end user experience for the UIC BS degree in Computer Science is near completion. By the end of the 2025 calendar year, additional degree programs, those for which we currently have static Transfer Pathways, will be brought into the DPP. Over time, all UIC undergraduate degree programs, in addition to transfer course information and their corresponding UIC equivalent articulations from all Illinois community colleges, will be integrated into the DPP.
Activity 4: Coordinated Academic Advising – Advising leaders from CPS, CCC, and UIC have been meeting to develop strategies for continuity of advising and the dissemination of curricular information for students in CPS and CCC as they plan to matriculate at UIC. UIC is currently in the process of approving two new positions who will work with campus advising leaders providing general advising with regard to UIC degree requirements and curricular changes, and offer insights to UIC baccalaureate programs and undergraduate research for CPS and CCC College Navigators. Moreover, they will create and assist with training the CCC and CPS Transfer Specialists/College Navigators on the Degree Planning Portal and ensuring effective information sharing between partner institutions.
Activity 5: Enhanced Student Success Programs – UIC Roadmap 2.0 leaders have begun meeting with additional leaders on campus, as well as seeking additional funding, to enhance opportunities meant to strengthen student readiness and sense of belonging. Examples may include Summer College, the development of a Research Pathway Program for STEM, and work-based learning opportunities including internships and apprenticeships.