Free college is being espoused in the U. S. to increase access to higher education. Has it accomplished this goal in the places that it has been tried? What are the other benefits and consequences of free college programs that need to be considered before embarking on or endorsing such programs? This article will examine these issues and it will show that what might seem to be a wonderful idea does not have all the positive outcomes we might expect and that there are better and more economical ways to further its objectives.
Free College Programs – Goals and Program Designs
There are now more than 300 free tuition programs around the country and many of the Democratic presidential candidates are espousing free college as one of their policy initiatives. Are these programs motivated by a desire to change the government’s compact with the American people to provide free education through college rather than just through high school? Are these programs meant to make a college degree accessible to all?
The many existing programs differ in a myriad of ways including the eligibility of students by geography, income and full-time/part-time attendance; the institutions that students can attend for free ranging from community colleges only to all publics in a specific area to all colleges in an area; to varying requirements to keep the scholarship; to those with post-graduation requirements requiring students to stay and work in the area that granted them the scholarship. In addition, the free college programs just support tuition and do not include any support for books, supplies, transportation and living expenses. Thus the subsidies provided for low income students are too small to make college truly affordable. Most of the free college programs are what we call last dollar programs which means that students must apply all the financial aid that they receive to tuition before the free tuition program provides the remaining funds; the free college program will pay only the balance of what is left towards tuition and cannot be used to subsidize the other costs associated with college. First dollar programs do not have any requirements for students to file for financial aid and the first dollar programs will pay the cost of tuition and allow any additional financial aid that a student receives to be used to support other college expenses if the program allows that. For example, in first dollar programs if a student qualifies for a Pell grant or other financial aid which can be used to support total college expenses rather than just the cost of tuition, those funds can be used towards room, board, books and other living expenses. This can make a large difference in terms of affordability to attend college.
The first “free college program” of the type which is now being discussed was the Kalamazoo Promise program which began in 2005 and offers free college to Kalamazoo public school graduates to attend any school, public or private, two or four year in Michigan. It is rare in that it is a first dollar in program so students can use other financial aid to support their living costs. The program which covers the largest number of students, at least on paper, is the NY Excelsior Scholarship Program which is available to all recent NY State high school graduates. It is a last dollar in program; as are most free programs, it has income limits on family eligibility; it applies only to recent high school graduates; it requires that students attend full-time and it requires students upon graduation to stay and work in NY for a specified number of years. The Excelsior program can be used only at public two and four year colleges and universities in New York.
Free Tuition Programs Increase Access
Irrespective of the restrictions that many of the programs have, free college is compelling in the simplicity of the message. It allows young children and their families to aspire to college knowing that it will be available to them even if they are poor. There has been a lot of controversy around these programs with many trying to say they are not really doing much for students as most are“last dollar programs” and thus do not provide access for the very low income as they are unable to afford college without funds to support the cost of their books, transportation and living expenses. In addition, most programs require full-time attendance which also eliminates many prospective students with significant family commitments and those students who struggle to complete college level work and thus end up taking fewer credits than a full-time course load. For many low income students going to community colleges, Federal Pell grants will more than cover the tuition costs so that there are no extra funds provided by a last dollar “free” college program; this is true in New York. None of these are reasons alone to give up on the laudable goal of increasing college access but there are better ways to accomplish this.
Many free college programs have been found to increase college going rates but they have had much more limited success in terms of college graduation rates. The Kalamazoo program increased the college going rate of students from 58% before the program began to 75% today while the college graduation rates of these students have only increased from 34% to 38%. The Kalamazoo experience is making it clear that finances are not the only barrier to student success. The New York program has had a very limited impact to date as only 20,086 or 3.2% of all undergraduate students attending college in New York State in 2017-18 received the scholarship.
“Free” tuition programs which do not have income constraints or are available to students with relatively high incomes benefit the wealthier students far more than low income students as college going rates are positively correlated with income and the programs which do not have income limitations on participation find that more upper income students benefit from the programs than low income students. The programs without income constraints provide subsidies for students who would have attended college and paid without the free college program. These programs are regressive from an income subsidy standpoint; benefitting more higher income families. In Kalamazoo, the college going rate of mid/high income students increased from 68% to 87%, a 26% increase, while the college going rate of lower income students increased from 41% to 67%, a 63% increase; although the program had a larger positive impact on lower income students; more funds were spent on high income students.
Impact of Free Tuition Programs on Colleges and Universities
Free tuition programs not only affect student behavior but also impact colleges and universities in various ways. Tennessee which began the first large scale “free” college program offered free college to all students, full and part-time, attending Tennessee community colleges beginning in 2015. When the program began, it was only available to recent high school graduates but beginning in 2018 it was made available to older students who wanted to go to a community college. In 2015, the community and technical colleges experienced a 25% increase in enrollment while the four-year colleges experienced enrollment declines. The large increase in enrollment was very difficult for many of the community colleges to absorb. The New York program which allows students to go to both public two-year and four-year institutions should mitigate some of the disproportionate increases in enrollment in one sector compared to another by allowing students to use the Excelsior scholarship at any public institution in the state. The sector which is being adversely affected by all the promise programs is the independent college sector which is having to compete much more vigorously for students in areas with successful free college programs as the tuition gap between $0 and the price at private institutions is large despite the generous financial aid offered by most private colleges.
Schools in areas where the free college program has resulted in substantial increases in enrollment have struggled with supporting these students because tuition only covers part of the cost of educating a student and most public colleges have not received increases in state or local funding to compensate for the enrollment increases. Furthermore, four-year schools which are operating at capacity and receive an influx of students from a free college program, have to limit their enrollment and they usually do this by increasing the academic requirements for students who they accept thus limiting the opportunities for the less qualified students to attend who are generally those with the lowest incomes. Community colleges, which by definition are open access and thus accept all eligible students, are unable to increase admissions requirements as most four-year schools can do as a strategy to control enrollment when they are at capacity often respond by not increasing the number of courses commensurate with the enrollment increases thus leading to great student frustration when they are unable to get the courses that they need/want. In France and Germany, two countries that provide free college, the percent of students who attend college is much lower than in the United States in large part attributable to strict admissions requirements. The governments in these countries limit the cost of these programs by limiting attendance.
Conclusion – More Efficient Ways Than Free College Exist To Increase College Access
The message of free college is a strong and important one for students to begin to aspire to college at a young age and it puts a clear stake in the ground that college should be accessible to all. In reality, because of the design of many of these programs, this is not the case. In addition, this certainly is not the most economically efficient way to provide access to college to those who truly cannot afford it. To accomplish the increase in access, we would be better served by simplifying the process to apply for the Federal Pell grant program (the governments large need-based financial aid program), by increasing the income eligibility for a Pell grant and by increasing the size of the maximum Pell grant so that it covers more, if not all, tuition at least at four-year public institutions and much of a student’s living costs at a community college. This would go a long way towards increasing accessibility to college while providing the subsidy to those who truly need it and containing the costs of the program. College does not need to be free but it needs to be accessible to students at all income levels without requiring them to take out excessive amounts of loans. Furthermore, additional attention needs to be given to supporting students so that they are successful in college so that not only are college-going rates increased but also college graduation rates. The Kalamazoo program has recently added support services to work to increase student success to compliment the increase in access which they have experienced.
