Plans were announced Monday to expand a pilot program that aims to close the racial and income gaps for college students.

The chancellor of SUNY schools made the announcement at SUNY Old Westbury that the college system is expanding a program aimed at re-enrolling students who stopped attending college.

The Re-Enroll to Complete Program launched at SUNY Old Westbury in 2018. The school makes calls to students who never graduated, connects them with financial aid services and provides flexible learning opportunities for students who may be working to support a family.

SUNY administrators say the retention rate for students is about 70%, but the figures are lower for Black and Hispanic students.

The SUNY system is now providing funding to make sure every SUNY college has the program.

"We're looking for seven more campuses to sign on for the baseline program, including Stony Brook University, which we've been working with, and their president is great and they're going to be fully on board with this," says SUNY Chancellor Jim Malatras. "And then what we want to do is expand all of our campuses that have the program. 60 get more services, seven are signing up for the first time ... it's about $350,000 of additional revenue."

Malatras says since the program's inception in 2018, they're gotten about 30% of students who dropped out to re-enroll in SUNY colleges again. 

The SUNY chancellor says they hope to have the program up and running at all SUNY colleges in the coming weeks.