Free college’s momentum shifted from the federal level to state and local programs, signaling the movement’s durability. How will it change institutions?
From Higher Ed Dive
By Lilah Burke
April 4, 2022
When first lady Jill Biden stood before attendees at the Community College National Legislative Summit in February to tell them that a proposal for a federal free community college program was dead, the mood was somber.
“Like you, I was disappointed. Because, like you, these aren’t just bills or budgets to me, to you, right? We know what they mean for real people, for our students,” she said. “It was a real lesson in human nature that some people just don’t get that.”
Even though a federal initiative is off the table, energy for free college didn’t die that day. It’s been shifting and transforming, finding new life at the state and local levels.
In recent months, a slew of initiatives covering tuition and other educational expenses have been proposed and enacted for certificate, two-year and four-year programs. Those include broad statewide programs, like one approved in New Mexico that will essentially make public college tuition free for almost any resident without a degree, but also smaller and more targeted projects.
Six years ago, there were about 53 state and local “promise programs,” which cover tuition costs for eligible students, said Rosye Cloud, senior leader at College Promise, a nonprofit that supports those programs. Now there are about 350, with eight launched in the last three months.
The current moment is likely the result of two concurrent forces, said Morley Winograd, president of the Campaign for Free College Tuition. One of those is the growth of public coffers due to the American Rescue Plan federal relief package — which sent $195 billion in fiscal recovery funding to state governments. The other is a constrained labor market that has lawmakers thinking seriously about adult education, he said.
Those factors “combined to create a moment where people could begin to do things they hadn’t contemplated doing before,” he said.
Most of the programs are real investments, as opposed to rebranding existing student financial aid, Winograd said. However, many significantly restrict eligibility. New York’s Excelsior Scholarship, which dates back to 2017, is only available to students with a household income up to $125,000, and recipients must stay in New York for as many years as they received the award.
Many programs have GPA and credit-hour requirements. Those often attempt to save funding, but they can dampen potential enrollment increases that colleges could see from the initiatives.
And enrollment growth is the way that free college programs are most likely to affect institutional budgets, said Jim Hundrieser, vice president for consulting and business development at the National Association of College and University Business Officers.
“The hope is that this growth in enrollment will grow revenues, especially at the community colleges where there’s been declining enrollment for the better part of the last three to five years, depending on what state you’re in,” he said.
That’s the hope in Maine, where Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, has proposed a $20 million investment to cover community college tuition for students whose high school education was affected by the pandemic. David Daigler, president of Maine’s community college system, supports the proposal.
“Our enrollments with traditional high school and college students were the lowest they’ve been in more than a decade,” he said. “The primary effect that we’re looking for is to educate these young students.”
There is no such thing as a free lunch
Expected enrollment gains don’t always come to fruition, Hundrieser said. The Rhode Island Promise program, for example, began in 2017. But the community college system has seen mostly flat enrollment over the past few years, he said. Colleges taking part in any program will also have the administrative burden of making sure students are meeting their requirements.
But free college programs can also have potential impacts on the ones they don’t include. Winograd noted some concern exists that free community college programs could incentivize students to attend two-year colleges instead of four-year universities.
There is some evidence of that, but any resulting enrollment declines at four-year public institutions weren’t large enough to endanger them financially, he said. He cautioned the findings came before the pandemic, which may have changed many student behaviors.
The strongest effects on other institutions may be outside of the public systems.
“Private colleges and universities who lack an identifiable brand or unique program have in fact been hurt. Four-year private liberal arts colleges that don’t have a stream of research funding or other sources of income such as a huge endowment have been hurt as states have introduced free tuition,” Winograd said. “But they were hurting before that.”
Colleges and universities in some cases have chosen not to take part in state programs. In contrast to Republican opposition in Congress, state efforts have been fairly bipartisan. In North Carolina, some college leaders originally balked at partaking in a Republican-led program limiting tuition at some colleges to $500 per semester, believing it would bankrupt their institutions. They worried the state would not make up for lost tuition revenue. So far, though, the state has made good on its promise to backstop the lower tuition costs.
Intended and unintended consequences
Now that programs have shown little deleterious effect on participating institutions, college leaders have more recently been supportive. Many are quickly trying to prepare for the effects on operations like finances and admissions.
Even in cases where a new program is unlikely to significantly affect enrollment, say in a four-year institution with fixed capacity, it’s important to think about how it may affect yield in admissions. That’s the situation at Rutgers University at New Brunswick, said Courtney McAnuff, vice chancellor for enrollment management at the public institution in New Jersey.
The flagship campus recently launched the Scarlet Guarantee, a program to make tuition free for students with household incomes under $65,000 and decrease tuition costs for those with an income under $100,000. The campus expects to see some additional applications, McAnuff said, but will not be admitting many additional students. Last year, the first-year class totaled 7,100 students.
The admissions department is already seeing the program affect how many students accept admission offers.
“We’re monitoring those numbers very carefully and have created a large waitlist so we can understand just how many students are accepting our offers,” McAnuff said.
The program may also change the makeup of the university’s students, with more low-income families willing to send their children to the state flagship. The new program requires that students take 30 credits per year, meaning they will likely graduate in four years and will not run out of grant eligibility in their final years. Administrators are increasing student support resources like tutoring and monitoring to be sure students can stay on track. If students can graduate more quickly, that also increases the university’s enrollment capacity, and in turn, potential revenue.
About $10 million of the budget for the program is new state funding, McAnuff said, but nearly $20 million is a reallocation of Rutgers money. The university’s annual budget totals about $5 billion.
“It is a matter of priorities,” he said. “And the president and the chancellor view this as a priority to expand access.”
At New Mexico State University, the administration anticipates a moderate enrollment increase because of the state’s new free college program. They are already seeing an application boost by a percentage in the low teens, but the question remains how many students will choose to come after being accepted. The university typically enrolls a little over 2,000 first-time students each fall.
The New Mexico program, called the Opportunity Scholarship, is one of the broadest in the country. Signed by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, in March, it provides free tuition to any New Mexico resident at two-year and four-year public colleges. It’s one of the few “first dollar” state programs, meaning the money kicks in before federal financial aid. Students can then use federal grants to cover other education-related expenses, like books or housing.
Renay Scott, vice president of student success at New Mexico State, predicts the program may increase the average age of the university’s student body, now about 23 years old, as people who have been out of high school for many years consider returning for a degree.
“The first and foremost concern that several of us have answered about is making sure this program is funded and adequately funded long into the future,” she said. “I really do believe there’s a really good-faith effort to make sure that happens.”
New Mexico State can handle the additional students for now, but there is also the question of whether, if an increase continues, it will experience a strain on resources. More students can mean more faculty, teaching assistants, staff and facilities are necessary.
The University of Texas at San Antonio is another institution looking, and expecting, to grow. Enrollment has been up since the pandemic, said Lynn Barnes, senior vice provost for strategic enrollment there, and the university is looking to build off those gains.
UTSA just expanded its preexisting free tuition program with additional funding from the University of Texas System. Revenue from a system-wide endowment will yield about $3 million per year for the San Antonio campus, allowing the college to expand the number of students whose full tuition is covered under the Bold Promise program.
The program applies to Texas students with family incomes under $70,000 and who rank in the top 25% of their high school classes. So far, over 1,700 students have enrolled in the program, and 3,800 qualified for fall 2022. The university didn’t say exactly how many additional students will be covered by the new funding, saying only that it will number in the hundreds.
The endowment will provide funding in perpetuity, which is an advantage over one-time state investments. With one-time funding, longevity is a bit murkier. But Winograd, of the Campaign for Free College Tuition, is hopeful the momentum for free college will last.
“In the world we’re living in, only the brave or perhaps the foolish would predict what’s going to happen a few years from now,” he said. “But in general the history of free college programs is once in place, I can’t think of a single one that was ever halted.”
Photo: Pomona College
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