Suggested citation:
Perna, L.W., & Leigh, E.W. Database of college promise programs. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania, Alliance for Higher Education and Democracy. Retrieved from http://ahead-penn.org/creating-knowledge/college-promise.

Acknowledgment:
We are grateful for the assistance of several individuals in the production of data in this database: Sabrina Aponte, Julia Brickfield, Stephanie Carroll, Aaron Soo Ping Chow, Glen Casey, Devon Hernandez, Jillian Johnston, Jessica Lim, Julia Manokhina, Destiny McLennan, Ashley Napier, Roman Ruiz, Dorothy Villarreal, and Jeremy Wright. We also appreciate feedback and verification of information from Denisa Gándara, Amy Li, and colleagues at WestEd.

Inclusion Criteria
Programs in the database have a goal of higher education attainment, have place-based eligibility criteria, and provide benefits to students. The seven categories of programs (derived from Perna & Leigh’s (2018) typology) include only programs that provide a financial award to students. The online database also includes programs that offer non-financial “promises,” such as guaranteed transfer, college savings accounts, and dual enrollment programs, but is not intended to include the complete population of these programs. We also do not include programs that are inactive or in development. While we include state-based merit and need-based financial aid programs used in the typology for reference in the online database, we do not include these programs in our interactive map.