By Michelle Miller-Adams and Bridget Timmeney
June 13, 2024
In 2021, a group of partners launched the Columbus Promise, a 3-year pilot that allows any graduate of Columbus City Schools to attend Columbus State Community College tuition free. The program is designed to boost college-going, promote student success, and meet the needs of the area’s growing job market. Today, the Columbus Promise celebrates its first three cohorts and commits to extending the program for years to come.
Our evaluation of first-year outcomes shows the program doubled the number of Columbus City School students attending Columbus State, expanded access for students who might otherwise have been unable to attend college, and increased the district’s college-going rate – all at an affordable cost for funders. We also found, however, that many of these students are struggling academically once in college and have difficulty accessing the supports available to them.
The Columbus Promise is more than a scholarship – students also receive college and career guidance while in high school, a $500 stipend per semester once enrolled in college, and coaching and academic support services through Columbus State. These components work together to provide not just financial resources but also navigation and support to help students complete a post-secondary degree or credential.
The Upjohn Institute has served as the independent evaluator of the Columbus Promise since its inception. It’s not easy for Promise programs to commit to evaluation. Program partners need to be willing to hear the bad as well as the good, but evaluation offers an independent review, rigorous data analysis, and input for ongoing improvements. Because Columbus Promise stakeholders have built evaluation into the program from the start, they have the chance to use our evaluation input to make this multi-faceted program more effective as it develops.
What have they – and we – learned from this experience?
[1] A simple, straightforward Promise can dramatically broaden the pipeline to post-secondary education and need not be expensive. The Columbus Promise covers attendance only at the local community college and pays for tuition after other forms of aid have been awarded. These features makes the program affordable for the community.
Even so, the Columbus Promise has succeeded in broadening access at a time when overall college enrollment is down. As Figure 1 shows, Ohio community college enrollment among first-time students fell from 2021 to 2023, continuing the decline that began during the pandemic. At the same time, enrollment numbers climbed at Columbus State and were even higher in 2023 than before the pandemic.
Access, however, is not synonymous with completion. For ultimate success, students need more than funding. They need guidance and navigation all along the pathway that runs from high school to college to the workforce, as efforts in Columbus demonstrate.
[2] Building on existing college-access resources can help ensure students take advantage of the Promise scholarship. In Columbus, hands-on support and outreach provided by I Know I Can, which has worked in Columbus City Schools for decades, helps students identify their post-secondary goals and complete the steps necessary to access the Columbus Promise or choose a different pathway.
[3] Many of the students served by tuition-free college programs need holistic and intensive support to remain on track, and not all will succeed. A crucial element of the Columbus Promise is investment in advising and student support services at Columbus State. A Promise program can be a catalyst for community colleges to experiment with new ways of delivering support; in Columbus, the college retooled its student support services to make them easier to access and continued to move in the direction of more proactive delivery.
[4] Even with tuition covered, students must balance work, school and life. A regular stipend offered to Promise scholars for books and other non-tuition costs can serve as an incentive for students. The Columbus Promise provides a stipend of $500 per semester. While this is a small amount relative to non-tuition expenses, we found that stipends were meaningful for students and in some cases were a reason for program participation.
[5] Many students participating in Promise programs need help developing the professional networks that will allow them to transition into a rewarding career. While cultivating business partners is critical to closing skills gaps, facilitating these mutually beneficial partnerships is hard. Scalable work readiness and career awareness opportunities culminating in a paid internship integrated into a student’s course of study mutually benefits students and businesses. Columbus State’s career-related pathways and experiential learning programs like Earn and Learn provide strong building blocks for employer engagement, although there is the need to integrate career awareness and work readiness content, expand paid work opportunities for Columbus Promise students, and support area business as they strive to diversify their workforce.
[6] Cross-sector alignment is difficult, sometimes requiring partner institutions to shift their mission, but ultimately it is essential to success. The Columbus Promise is notable for the genuine and sustained collaboration of its key stakeholders – the City of Columbus, Columbus City Schools, Columbus State Community College, and I Know I Can.Research has shown that effective Promise programs require the alignment of key community partners, and we found that cross-sector collaboration is one of the key strengths of the Columbus Promise.
As this partnership commits to extending the Columbus Promise into the future, we will continue to evaluate the program and provide guidance around metrics, costs, and ideas for continuous improvement.
The Upjohn Institute team leading this study is made up of nationally recognized experts in Promise program evaluation. For almost 20 years, the institute has worked with more than 40 communities to design and improve place-based scholarship programs that aim to expand college opportunities, build a skilled workforce, and create thriving communities.
Related research
The Free College Handbook: A Practitioner’s Guide to Promise Research
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