WASHINGTON – As Congress takes up myriad issues relevant to the upcoming reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, it’s an ideal time to examine how Promise scholarship programs can inform the discussion, according to those who study and implement such programs.
Experts weighed in Friday at “College Promise: Supporting Students in College Access and Success,” a forum on Capitol Hill presented by the nonpartisan organizations American Youth Policy Forum and MDRC.
There are more than 300 local and state Promise programs across the nation, and the number is rising. Some data suggest that while they tend to improve access to higher education – especially for low-income, minority and first-generation students – more is needed to help those students persist and close graduation disparity gaps.
“The equity challenges are front and center,” said Dr. Martha Kanter, executive director of the College Promise Campaign, a national initiative that works to increase college access, affordability, quality and completion beginning at community colleges.
The campaign, which examines how Promise programs function and is tracking more than 100 studies, hopes to identify programmatic designs, funding mechanisms and impacts that can enhance efforts everywhere.
“We’re not educating enough minority and low-income students,” said Kanter, a senior fellow at New York University’s Steinhardt Institute for Higher Education Policy and a former community college district chancellor in California and U.S. under secretary of education. “All the groups are rising, but the equity gaps aren’t closing fast enough.”
A successful Promise program, she said, should be place-based, evidence- and performance-based, financially sustainable and have guaranteed college support, a robust infrastructure and cross-sector sustainable leadership.
