In 2015, Tennessee launched Tennessee Promise (TN Promise), one of the most comprehensive and well-funded statewide free-college scholarship programs in the country. To support TN Promise students, and especially those from the lowest-income households, tnAchieves, a key partner facilitating all non-financial components of TN Promise, implemented…

The job of the school principal has become much more complex and demanding over the past several decades. Many university-based principal preparation programs--which prepare the majority of school principals--have struggled with how to make the fundamental changes needed to prepare principals for today's schools. To test a path forward, The…

In this chapter, we explore statewide tuition-free college programs which encourage students to earn Career and Technical Education (CTE) credentials. To map the current landscape of statewide Promise programs, we conducted a policy discourse analysis of all statewide Promise programs while focusing on policy features relevant to workforce…

Calls for greater equity are ubiquitous in higher education policy, both at the state and institutional level. The California College Promise and the local programs through which its benefit of tuition-free community college is accessed, are part of this trend, making it critically important to understand how equity is framed, understood, and…

Background: Promise programs are a quickly spreading policy tool in the free college movement. Despite their rapid spread, promise programs remain generally untested and there is even less information about how they are implemented. Research Questions: (1) In what ways were The Degree Project's (TDP) theory of change and intents represented in…

Background: Promise scholarship programs are a quickly spreading policy tool in the free college movement. Despite their rapid spread, promise programs remain generally untested and there is even less information about how they are implemented. Focus of study: We study the implementation and effects of the nation's first randomized control trial…

Using a panel dataset from 2000 to 2014, this paper employs a difference-in-difference design to consider the impact of the introduction of a "promise program" on postsecondary institutions' internal spending levels and patterns. We find that promise programs influence postsecondary institutional behavior in every area we tested:…

This article explores programmatic and institutional differentiation among private universities in Ontario since the enactment of the Postsecondary Education Choice and Excellence Act of 2000. Findings suggest that there has been a small increase in both programmatic diversity through specialized graduate-level programs offered by out-of-province…

In the past few years, dozens of states, localities, and schools have proposed or enacted "free college" policies, also known as College Promise programs. While a handful of states have run Promise-like programs for decades, the 2014 launch of the Tennessee Promise and the Obama administration's focus on the concept catalyzed several…

Given the proliferation of college promise programs and the increasing popularity of last-dollar designs, we explore changes to states' financial aid resource environments following the adoption of two of the largest and longest-operating state programs: Tennessee Promise and Oregon Promise. We leverage descriptive tools and a causal-inference…

This qualitative study was designed to explore the programs, policies, and initiatives at Institutions of Higher Education (IHEs) that contribute to the upward economic mobility of students from low-socioeconomic backgrounds. While general knowledge surrounding IHEs performance in graduating students from low-socioeconomic backgrounds into…

This qualitative study examines Tennessee Promise students' (N = 60) perceptions of supports and resources during their first year of college. Students' reflections suggest that they hold expectations for support from the state beyond scholarship dollars, and that other actors, including faculty, staff, parents, and the state's nonprofit partner,…

Homelessness and housing insecurity (HI) have impacted college students' success for years but were exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially when lots of educational institutions closed their student housing, which resulted in college students having to vacate student housing. This was a major concern especially if their student…

The California College Promise Policy brief outlines the policy landscape that helped fuel the growth of College Promise in California. It reflects on issues that have arisen as the state's College Promise legislation and reforms have been implemented, and offers recommendations for maximizing the equity and impact of the California model of…

The State of Maryland has always prided itself on being a leader in higher education. In 2012, the Career and College Readiness and College Completion Act (CCRCCA) set an ambitious goal: that 55% of Marylanders would have at least one degree by 2025. Reaching this goal requires increasing college access and completion across a wide variety of…