To boost educational achievement, Detroit announced on Tuesday a plan to offer free two years of community college to students. But will the plan actually work?
In addition to touting how “college just got dramatically more do-able for Detroit students,” The Christian Science Monitor pointed to skeptical educational researchers.
It’s notable that the free two years is for community colleges. Chenny Ng, a researcher at Northwestern University, wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post noting that community colleges have graduation rates of just 39 percent.
In addition to reminding that “the problem is, ‘free’ might come at a cost,” Ng points to the importance of cost. “Paying tuition — even a relatively small or nominal amount — seemed to help unlock a new identity as a responsible student,” the Northwestern research team noticed. Ng is not advocating for tuition hikes, though.
Cost could also be associated with dropping out. For “the issue of underpreparedness is certainly a factor, but graduates also offer a partial explanation — as the cost of attending college drops to zero, so does the perceived cost of dropping out.”
Ng points to other initiatives, such as covering non-tuition expenses and investing in career services.
The Detroit plan follows 10 other low-income cities in Michigan, all of which are modeled after the “Kalamazoo Promise” of 2005. The plan was considered successful:
Could offering free community college actually make Detroit students less likely to graduate then? Only time will tell. The Christian Science Monitor also featured students who are excited and motivated by the prospect. If it becomes successful, the city can use all the positive attention it can get. Detroit — which filed Chapter 9 bankruptcy in 2013 — is one of the poorest-performing city districts in the country, with many of its schools considered unsafe.
