The premise of “free college” programs appearing all over the country In recent years, the reduction in the cost of higher education to almost nothing will encourage more students to enroll and earn degrees.
But is that what really happens?
David Monaghan, an associate professor of sociology at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania, has been investigating that question in a series of recent research studies. And the results indicate that not all of these free college programs have the desired effect and that the way a program is organized can make a big difference.
In a working document Professor Monaghan, co-author of a study published last month, for example, compared two free college programs in Pennsylvania to analyze their results in depth.
One such program is Lehigh Carbon Community College’s Morgan Success Scholarship, which is available to Tamaqua Area High School students who enroll immediately after completing their high school degree. Qualifying students are guaranteed full tuition payment, and the program pays any remaining difference after the student applies for other financial aid and scholarships (a model known as “last dollar tuition only guarantee”).
The other is the Community College of Philadelphia’s 50th Anniversary Scholarship Program, which is available to students who graduate from a Philadelphia high school and meet other merit criteria. It is also a “last dollar” program that covers any unpaid tuition and fees from other sources. Students must enroll immediately after graduating from high school, have a low enough income to qualify for a federal Pell Grant, submit their application for federal financial aid by a certain date, and enroll in at least six credits at the college.
The Morgan Success Scholarship appeared to work largely as its creators hoped. The year after the program began, the college admissions rate at Tamaqua Area High School rose from 86 percent to 94 percent, and the college admissions rate rose another percentage point the following year. And the number of students graduating from Lehigh Carbon Community College with a two-year degree increased after the program was created.
But something else happened that wasn’t intended. The free college program appears to have led some students who would have enrolled in a four-year college to start at a two-year college instead, where they may or may not end up going to a four-year institution. There is, then, the possibility that the program could end up preventing some students from completing a four-year degree. “Overall, the program expands access to postsecondary education more than it diverts students from four-year degrees, although it appears to do this, too,” the article states.
Meanwhile, the Community College of Philadelphia's free college education program did not appear to have much impact.
“I was expecting to see an increase in enrollment, and I didn’t even see that,” Monaghan says.
In other words, it is not even clear from the data that the free college initiative has caused any increase in college enrollment.
The reason, she says, may be that program leaders didn't do enough to spread the word about the option and what it takes to apply. Because the program was open to all high schools in the city, making that communication was harder than in the case of the other program they studied.
“Our analyses suggest that a tuition guarantee, by itself, will not necessarily have any impact,” he and his co-author wrote in their paper. “If a program fails and no one finds out, it will not change enrollment patterns.”
Monaghan says the results show that more attention needs to be paid to the details of how free college programs work, especially since many of them are riddled with restrictions and require students to jump through a number of hoops to take advantage of them. That can be a lot to ask of a 17- or 18-year-old finishing high school.
“We really overestimate what people are like at the end of high school” and how smart they will be when it comes to weighing the costs and benefits of higher education, he says. “There hasn’t been enough research done on free college programs in terms of how they are implemented and communicated,” he adds.
Of course, it's worth noting that some free college programs do significantly increase tuition, and that can lead to another unintended side effect: draining resources at two-year colleges.
That was the case in Massachusetts, where the Massive reconnection The program that launched in 2023 led to more than 5,000 new students enrolling in the first semester it was available, according to A report from the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education.
As a result, the state's 15 community colleges have… Had difficulty recruiting enough staff —including adjunct instructors—to keep up with new demand.
What did the program do to spark so much interest? Unlike the programs studied in Pennsylvania, MassReconnect is available not just to people who have just graduated from high school, but to anyone over the age of 25 — a much larger pool of potential applicants.
Other working document Monaghan, who examined all the available research she could find on free college programs, found a wide variety of impacts.
And that may be the most important lesson: In free college programs, the devil really is in the details of how they are organized and communicated.
