Local-level, place-based scholarships: a review of the literature

ABSTRACT

Local-level, place-based scholarships – synonymous with “promise” scholarships – are a policy strategy to improve college completion in the United States by directing financial aid to students in a particular school, district, or geographical area. There are currently upwards of 90 place-based scholarship programs across the US, most of which share three broad goals: to increase postsecondary access by making college more affordable, to build a college-going culture, and to catalyse economic development by drawing middle- and upper-class families to an area and retaining existing residents. As place-based scholarships grow in popularity and more communities, especially ones seeking economic revitalisation, consider investing resources in their own scholarships, there is interest in what impact, if any, these programs have. This paper reviews the research on place-based scholarships, which demonstrates generally positive effects on district enrolment, postsecondary enrolment and persistence, and housing prices. While there is some evidence of improvement in teacher expectations and school climate, the scholarships have not been associated with fundamental changes inside schools. Although most programs have not been empirically studied, the 33 studies included in this review indicate that place-based scholarships have the potential to foster change within school districts and struggling cities and promote positive student outcomes.

KEYWORDS:

• Educational equity (opportunities)
• financial aid applicants
• higher education
• scholarships
• promise scholarships
• place-based scholarships

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. See Delaney and Ness (2010) for a typology of state merit aid programs, Page and Scott-Clayton (2016) for a review of policies to improve college access, and Perna and Leigh (2018b) for a typology of state- and local-level promise programs.

2. Knox Achieves, a last-dollar, universal, county-wide scholarship, is omitted from this review. Carruthers and Fox (2016) demonstrate the program’s positive effects on high school graduation rates, college credits earned, and persistence, but the scholarship is now a state-wide program known as Tennessee Achieves (College Promise, 2018).

3. Kalamazoo Promise operates on a sliding scale designed to encourage families to enrol their children early and to maintain enrolment through graduation. Students who attend KPS from kindergarten through grade 12 receive a 100% tuition benefit. Students who enter in grades 1–3 receive 95% of their tuition covered. The proportion of tuition is reduced by 5% through grade 9, where students receive a 65% benefit. Students who enter in grades 10–12 receive no award (Kalamazoo Promise, n.d.). This tiered benefit structure has served as a model for other programs.

4. See Reeves et al. (2018) for case studies of SYTE sites.

5. Programs included in Perna and Leigh’s (2018b) sample sought to bolster educational attainment, promised a financial award to eligible students, had some “place” requirement, and focused on traditional college-age students. Many of the scholarships, but not all, use the “promise” label.

6. A Pell grant is a federal subsidy for students demonstrating financial need.

7. Students targeted by promise scholarships are often less academically and/or socioeconomically advantaged than students overall, so a national sample is not necessarily an optimal comparison group. In this case, retention rate differences could be attributed to pre-existing differences between the samples; Pittsburgh Promise recipients were required to have a 2.5 GPA, so they may have been better prepared for college – and perhaps more likely to be retained – than some students in the ACT national sample.

8. If a student who qualifies for a maximum Pell grant ($5,920 for 2017–2018) enrols at a four-year university with tuition and fees of $9,970/year, a last-dollar scholarship would cover the remaining $4,050. If she attends a community college with tuition and fees of $3,570 per year – the average cost according to the College Board (2018) – the last-dollar scholarship would not contribute anything towards her cost of attendance because the Pell grant would cover her tuition and fees.