Free College For All: The Impact Of Promise Programs On College Access And Success

Abstract

This dissertation focuses on a type of college scholarship called promise programs. These promise programs offer free or discounted tuition and fees to all eligible students within specific geographic locations. Given that students and families underestimate the amount of available financial aid and overestimate the price of tuition (De La Rosa, 2006; De La Rosa & Tierney, 2006; Grodsky & Jones, 2007), the cost (real or perceived) of postsecondary education may act as a significant barrier for college enrollment. By awarding students with free or discounted college early in the college decision making process, students may feel that college is now attainable for them because their financial concerns are either reduced or eliminated. Thus, these three chapters collectively focus on evaluating the impact of promise programs on college enrollment, choice, persistence, and degree attainment.

The first chapter discusses the policy diffusion and reinvention of promise programs across the United States. I examine 140 promise programs in the United States located in single high schools, school districts, college service areas, towns, cities, or states. This chapter describes the diffusion of promise programs across polities identifying three mechanisms for diffusion and provides examples of promise programs that were adopted due to these mechanisms. The chapter also discusses the variation in promise scholarship design and visually displays this variation on two characteristics: student eligibility and benefits offered. I explain why promise programs may have changed their design as they diffused to other areas and summarize the current promise program literature.

The second chapter focuses on the Kalamazoo Promise, the oldest and most well-known of the nation’s promise programs. Funded by anonymous donors in 2005, the Kalamazoo Promise pays up to 100% of tuition and fees to any public college or university in Michigan. I use an instrumental variable difference-in-differences research design to evaluate the effect of the Kalamazoo Promise on postsecondary attainment and choice. Unlike previous work in this area, I am able to compare changes in outcomes for students in Kalamazoo with those in a set of similar districts across the state. I use an administrative, longitudinal dataset of the universe of elementary and secondary students in Michigan in this analysis. I find that the offer of the scholarship increases college attendance by nine to eleven percentage points and degree completion by about five percentage points. Effects are smallest for economically disadvantaged, Black, or Latino students on their degree attainment.

The third chapter describes eight promise zone communities that were selected by the state of Michigan in 2009. These promise zones offer free tuition and fees to at least an associate degree for all eligible high school graduates within the promise zone. Unlike the Kalamazoo Promise, however, the scholarship designs of these promise programs are not as generous as they offer substantially smaller scholarship awards, fewer years to use the scholarship, and restrict postsecondary choice to local community colleges and universities. I use an instrumental variable difference-in-differences design to estimate the effect of eligibility for promise zones on college enrollment, college choice, and persistence. I find positive, but imprecisely estimated impacts on whether students enroll in college and persist to the second year of college. I offer suggestions for the promise zones to leverage community resources and create simple and salient messages targeted towards students.