A little more than a year after the Kalamazoo Promise was launched, the hope, curiosity and excitement for this novel scholarship program has only grown.

Cities and states have generated proposals to duplicate the program, which guarantees four-year tuition payment at any Michigan public institution for Kalamazoo Public Schools graduates who have resided in the district for their K-12 years. Students who have lived in the district for less time receive lesser scholarships.

At a town hall meeting Wednesday, about 200 educators and policymakers tackled the question: Should the state offer free tuition to all residents and, if so, how?

The all-day discussion, organized by the Center for Michigan, a new “think-and-do-tank,” resulted in the majority of participants agreeing the Kalamazoo Promise should be rolled out throughout the state. Funding options for such a program included new state or local taxes, according to a survey of the participants.

The Center for Michigan, founded by longtime newspaper publisher Phil Power, estimated such a program would cost the state more than $1 billion annually — or about 10 percent of the general fund budget. The money would cover all public university tuition not already covered by financial aid and half of room and board costs.

So far, the Kalamazoo program — funded completely by anonymous donors — has galvanized local residents, boosted enrollment in the public school district, increased the graduation rate and elevated home values.

While it is too early to tell the total impact of the program, the results so far have prompted serious discussions on expanding a free scholarship program throughout Michigan, which has suffered from high unemployment rates, low educational attainment and steady outbound migration of young professionals.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 18th, 2007 at 7:27 am and is filed under Education, Scholarship. Tags: Education, Financial Aid, Scholarship, Student. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.