![]() Also, as is the norm with free college programs, students had to fill out the FAFSA and have at least one dollar of unmet need. Students could use the funds for college if they graduated from high school on time with a GPA of 2.5 and a class attendance rate of 90%. TDP offered all first-time 9 th graders in half of MPS high schools $12,000 for college as “last-dollar” aid. I developed The Degree Project (TDP) in 2009 as a demonstration program in partnership between the nonprofit Ascendium (then known as the Great Lakes Higher Education Corporation and Affiliates) and Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS). Consequently, I conclude that the evidence increasingly favors free college and “open access aid” more generally. Below, I summarize our just-released study (co-authored with Jonathan Mills), compare our results to other financial aid programs, and then discuss implications for the Biden and CP proposals. Since then, we have collected more data and learned more about how students responded over time. ![]() Two years ago, Brookings released the first installment of the Milwaukee work, which I carried out with a team of researchers. I have studied college access for many years and run two randomized control trials of financial aid, which produced some of the first causal evidence on free college in Milwaukee. Biden’s latest plan only applies to community colleges, which focus on career and vocational education of the sort Republicans support, as opposed to universities, which many Republicans view as hostile battlegrounds in a culture war.īut I am less interested in the politics than the evidence of effectiveness. While this could go the way of Obamacare, which faced strong GOP congressional opposition despite the law’s origins with Republican Mitt Romney, free college seems different. In fact, one of the first such statewide programs was put in place by Bill Haslam, the former Republican governor of Tennessee. A majority of self-identified Republicans has supported the notion of free college in some polls. ![]() In today’s polarized environment, the free college idea stands out for its bipartisan support. (Full disclosure: I previously advised the Biden campaign and presently advise CP, but have received no compensation for these efforts.) Two weeks ago, the nonprofit College Promise (CP)-led by Martha Kanter, who served as President Obama’s undersecretary for education-also released a proposal that will influence the free college debate.
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