NASHVILLE, Tenn. ― With the Nov. 1 deadline to apply approaching, the Tennessee Promise program could be on pace to perhaps double the state’s goal of applications.
So far, more than 35,000 high school students have applied for the program, which offers free tuition at the state’s two-year community colleges and colleges of applied technology, The Tennessean reported.
That means some two-thirds of the 60,000 public high school seniors in Tennessee could eventually sign up for the program, the newspaper said.
The state’s goal was 20,000 applications.
The rush to attend community college for free was on display last month at Motlow State Community College. The Lynchburg, Tenn., school held what it called “Scholarship Saturday.” In just four hours, more than 1,300 students signed up for Tennessee Promise.
Forty-five minutes before the doors opened for the one-stop application outing, a line was already meandering out the door of the school’s library.
“It looked like kids waiting to get into a Justin Bieber concert,” said Mike Krause, who is working out of the governor’s office to lead the initiative to increase the number of college graduates to 55 percent of the adult population by 2025. “But it was kids waiting to sign up for Tennessee Promise.”
