College Promise Programs at Penn AHEAD
College promise programs promote college-going by promising to cover tuition or other costs for students who meet easy-to-understand criteria, such as residing in a particular state.
Since 2015, Penn AHEAD has studied the scope and effectiveness of college promise programs across the United States. Under the leadership of higher education expert Laura W. Perna, the research tracks the evolution of college promise initiatives, analyzes their implementation and effectiveness, identifies trends that shape the sector, and provides guidance for program designers and other higher education leaders.
Now, more than a decade into the national college promise movement, a clearer picture is emerging — revealing not only what strategies successfully increase college access and completion, but what approaches may fall short.
New Research Offers Critical InsightsOur 2025 report, College Promise Programs in the Midwest: Insights for Higher Education Leaders, offers a close look at programs in twelve midwestern states – programs that are emblematic of the variety of promise initiatives nationwide. The research sheds new light on program design, sustainability, and long-term student outcomes, offering critical insights for policymakers, educators, and funders working to improve higher education access and attainment. |
What Is a College Promise program?
College promise programs provide a clear, early guarantee that students who meet easy-to-understand criteria will receive grant aid that covers their tuition or other college costs. By communicating “free tuition” before requiring students to navigate complex admission and financial aid processes, promise programs reduce uncertainty about affordability and encourage college-going behaviors.
Also known as “free tuition” and “debt-free college” initiatives, promise programs may be designed to reach residents of a particular state, students attending particular colleges and universities, or students attending particular K–12 schools and living in designated communities. Programs vary in many ways — including the financial award provided, the college or university students may attend, eligibility requirements, and availability of services to assist students with the nonfinancial requirements of enrollment.
What differentiates college promise programs from traditional grant aid programs is the clear message that — for students who meet easily understandable criteria — at least some college costs will be covered without first requiring students to apply for admission, be admitted to a college or university, complete the FAFSA, and receive (and interpret) a financial aid offer letter.
Over the past 20 years, programs meeting this definition have been advanced at state, institutional, and local levels as a strategy for addressing concerns with college affordability and increasing higher education attainment. Some college promise programs are modeled on the Kalamazoo Promise, a place-based scholarship program created in 2005. As articulated by Michelle Miller-Adams and others at the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, place-based scholarship programs seek to improve communities by increasing college access and attainment, fostering a college-going culture in local K-12 schools, and encouraging local economic development. Other college promise programs take the form of the “free tuition” programs offered by state governments and other entities. State-sponsored free tuition programs include the Tennessee Promise and Oregon Promise, as well as New York’s Excelsior Program. College promise programs have also been established by community colleges as well as four-year public and private colleges and universities. In its MyPromise tool, College Promise reports more than 440 college promise programs nationwide.
College promise programs vary in the financial award provided, target population, eligibility requirements, and other characteristics. Variations in program design are not surprising given the likely benefits of adapting a program to meet the priorities, needs, and other characteristics of the state and local context. Variations in program design also reflect the trade-offs program designers must make when allocating finite resources to achieve different goals. In response to resource constraints, some programs, for example, may provide small average dollar awards to many students, whereas others offer larger dollar awards to fewer students.
Penn AHEAD's College Promise Research: An Overview
In fall 2015, with encouragement from the College Promise Campaign and seed money from Civic Nation, Penn AHEAD established a national database of college promise programs. This database captured information about the rapidly growing array of programs and served as a resource researchers to study their impact. The team has continued to build and encourage research-based knowledge of college promise programs, tracking the evolution of promise initiatives, analyzing their implementation and effectiveness, identifying trends that shape the sector, and providing guidance for program designers and other higher education leaders.
- Developing a typology of college promise programs (Perna & Leigh, 2018)
- Hosting a research conference (October 2017) and publishing an edited volume of research papers (Perna & Smith, 2020), both with support from the American Educational Research Association
- Conceptualizing how and why college promise programs can improve student outcomes (Perna, Leigh, & Caroll, 2017) and areas for needed research (Perna, 2021)
- Examining the implementation of community college promise programs
- Proposing a research-based framework for assessing the return on investment of promise programs (Perna, Wright-Kim, & Leigh, 2020)
- Identifying the institutional and other forces that influence the effectiveness of college promise programs (Perna, Wright-Kim, & Leigh, 2021)
- Examining the characteristics of state, institutional, and local college promise programs in the 12 Midwestern states and offering new guidance for higher education leaders (Perna, 2025)
For more information about this work or access to the datasets, please email Laura Perna at lperna@upenn.edu. For media inquiries, contact Kat Stein at katstein@upenn.edu.
