Abstract:
Inspired by the Kalamazoo Promise, the state of Michigan selected 10 promise zone communities 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 last-dollar and are mainly concentrated at the community college level so they may not appeal to all students within the school district. Given the requirements to become operational, the promise zones started in a rolling pattern with Baldwin as the first promise zone in 2010 and Muskegon ISD as the last promise zone in 2015. For this paper, I focus on the first eight promise zones which became operational from 2010-2013. I use an instrumental variable difference-in-difference design to estimate the effect of eligibility for 100 percent of the scholarship (“free” college) and any percent of the scholarship on high school graduation and college enrollment for the expected high school graduating classes of 2007 - 2014.