Dozens of states and cities provide “college promise” programs. Intended to incentivize high school graduation and college matriculation, they typically offer to cover postsecondary tuition expenses. These programs are often touted as “free college,” though they typically fall short of full financial support and lead to underutilization and dropouts. A new qualitative study looks to describe how one such program is perceived and experienced by awardees in hopes of understanding how to best execute such programs in the future.
Data come from nineteen semi-structured focus group interviews conducted in March and April 2018 on the campuses of ten postsecondary institutions across Tennessee: three technical colleges, six community colleges, and one four-year college. Interviewees were first-year recipients of the Tennessee Promise scholarship and 60 students ultimately participated. Thirty-six were male, twenty-four female; forty-three were White, sixteen were Black, and one student was not identified by racial background. Discussions centered on students’ college decision-making process, expectations for and experiences in their first semester of college, and perceptions of resources and information available to them moving out of high school and into college.
Through several rounds of analysis and coding of responses, researcher Jenna W. Kramer constructed an overarching framework of relationships and actions that the average student identified as part of his or her pathway into college. The State of Tennessee was the key player, according to student interviews, beginning while they were in high school. Specifically, the eligibility criteria for Tennessee Promise scholarships include a community service requirement. This was identified by interviewees as the main hurdle put in place by the state to earning the scholarship. Requirements such as steady enrollment and minimum senior year GPA were seen as “no big deal” by most students, which makes sense, given that these are typical expectations of any high school student looking to earn a diploma. But those who pursued the opportunity and persevered largely believed that the state gave them tuition money in exchange for the community service work. Maintaining the award while in college required a minimum number of credit hours along with continued community service, commitments which many awardees said likely deterred some of their peers from applying.
Another key role was played by the non-profit entity tnAchieves, which manages disbursement of funds and provides mentorship and other supports for awardees. In fact, because students engaged with tnAchieves before they enrolled in college, they often came to see it as more important to their success than the colleges themselves. Interviewees described the organization performing roles more typical of college professors and advisors. Interestingly, both the nonprofit and the colleges were most frequently cited for their assistance in finding and maintaining community service work. That element clearly looms large for awardees.
With the state and tnAchieves filling the roles of financial and technical support—and with students motivating themselves to study, achieve, and complete service hours—parents and families mostly acted as moral support and cheerleaders. They also helped keep track of deadlines and paperwork completion.
In general, the structure of the Tennessee Promise program seemed well suited to its intentions. It motivated high schoolers to reach college—including many for whom a postsecondary academic track would not have been under consideration without the scholarship—and supported them once enrolled. That support mattered greatly to those without the social capital of college-going family and friends.
One place where the effort appeared to falter, however, was actual financial support. Tennessee Promise, being a “last-dollar” scholarship, covered tuition amounts remaining only after other federal and state funding sources were applied, and those, in turn, depend on family income. Thus the award amount varied greatly among students. Some received thousands of dollars from the program toward their tuition, others just a few hundred. But the community service requirement was the same for everyone. All students were responsible for their own textbooks and supplies—a particularly pricey list for those attending technical school—as well as living expenses. Students from the lowest-income families reported receiving cash refunds of any excess amount of their federal Pell Grants, which they could then use toward books and even food.
Awardees were generally aware of these disparities, and those who struggled to make up the gaps felt the state could have provided better information to them before the first bills came due. They also suggested a fairer means of subsidizing the additional costs, such as separate stipends earmarked for books and transportation, the latter an oft-cited deterrent toward success.
Kramer notes that all the interviewees were students in their second semester of college and thus had already successfully navigated numerous potential problems. The stories of awardees who were not able to maintain enrollment through the first semester would likely show more and different cracks in the framework. But those who did overcome problems and persevere at least this far can teach us a lot. She couches her analysis in terms of the “psychological contract” between students and the various players in the process, but in the end, it seems much simpler. The architects of this program understood much about what high school graduates need to make it to and through college and built a relatively sturdy base on which to deliver them.
SOURCE: Jenna W. Kramer, “Expectations of a Promise: The Psychological Contracts Between Students, the State, and Key Actors in a Tuition-Free College Environment,” AERA Journal (May 2022).
