A promise made before college applications
In 2005, Kalamazoo Public Schools superintendent Janice Brown announced a striking offer: qualifying district graduates could receive up to their full tuition and mandatory fees at Michigan public colleges and universities. The Kalamazoo Promise made where a student grew up and attended school central to the award. In its April 15, 2026 announcement, the organization reported more than 9,300 scholars and more than $255 million in scholarships. Those are program-reported totals, not a measurement of how many additional degrees it caused. [1][9]
The money came from anonymous donors. Upjohn Institute researchers describe the November 2005 announcement as the beginning of a model that spread to other communities. Their current data resource follows enrollment, credentials and participation by race and gender. It also describes a program that now supports readiness coaches, completion assistance and paid internships alongside scholarships. The intervention has therefore developed beyond a tuition payment, even though tuition remains its best-known feature. [2]
The boundary was a school district
The first eligible graduating class was 2006. The current rules require graduation from Kalamazoo Public Schools, residence within the district and continuous enrollment and residency through at least all of high school. For the traditional four-year-college pathway, attendance from kindergarten through graduation brings a 100% award; continuous attendance beginning in ninth grade brings 65%. Entry after ninth grade does not qualify under the published schedule. It is a broad place-based benefit, but it is not an unrestricted scholarship for every person living in the city. [3]
The rules also govern what happens after admission. The published benefit covers up to 145 credits, generally within ten years of high-school graduation and ending when a bachelor’s degree is completed. Continued funding requires satisfactory academic progress and a 2.0 grade-point average. Full-time enrollment is generally required, with community-college, summer and individually approved exceptions. These conditions mean that eligibility at graduation and successful use through college are separate stages. [3]
Tuition was only one part of the college bill
Western Michigan University explains the award as first-dollar aid: Promise money is applied to tuition and mandatory fees before other scholarships. Other tuition-specific awards can then cover any remaining eligible charges. At that university, withdrawn, repeated and failed courses count toward the 145-credit allowance. This makes the benefit more substantial than an award that only fills whatever tuition gap other grants leave, while still limiting how much study the scholarship buys. [4]
The Promise’s own guidance distinguishes tuition from room and board, books, transportation and other expenses. Students may need other aid for those costs. It also describes a practical sequence: a scholarship agreement establishes the eligibility percentage, and a later acceptance form connects the program with the college account so payment can be made. Removing a tuition charge changes the financial hurdle; it does not itself arrange housing, transport, course completion or the eventual job. [5]
Researchers tested whether more students finished
The unexpected announcement created a useful comparison. Researchers Timothy Bartik, Brad Hershbein and Marta Lachowska compared changes for eligible and ineligible district graduates before and after the Promise began. Students who had enrolled early enough qualified, while later entrants did not. Their 2015 study was therefore more informative than simply comparing college-going rates before and after 2005, although it still relied on assumptions about how the groups would otherwise have changed. [6]
The study estimated that the share earning a postsecondary credential within six years rose by 12 percentage points, from a 36% pre-Promise baseline to 48%. That was an estimated program effect, not the latest raw graduation rate for all participants. The authors also found gains in enrollment and credits attempted, with about four-fifths of the credential increase attributable to bachelor’s degrees. The result supports the conclusion that the scholarship helped students progress through education, rather than merely paying for the same college choices they would have made anyway. [6]
More credentials did not translate neatly into more jobs
A July 2021 working paper by Hershbein, Isabel McMullen, Brian Pittelko and Bridget Timmeney extended the story into employment. It linked education records with Michigan unemployment-insurance wage data and supplemented the analysis with surveys and interviews. Again, the comparison followed eligible and ineligible graduates around the program’s introduction. The authors found little evidence of a change in average earnings recorded in Michigan within ten years of high-school graduation. [7]
Upjohn’s summary reports no evident employment gain seven to ten years after graduation and a small increase in average earnings recorded in Michigan that was not statistically significant. There was a more encouraging distributional result: among people working, the estimated likelihood of Michigan-recorded annual earnings above $28,000 rose from roughly 73% to 78%. The research also found greater proximity to Kalamazoo in graduates’ twenties, while some strong students left Michigan. These are different outcomes. Higher credential attainment, crossing an earnings threshold and remaining nearby do not establish that the scholarship generated more jobs throughout the city. [8]
The offer keeps changing
On April 15, 2026, the Promise expanded community-college coverage. All Promise-eligible scholars at participating Michigan community colleges could receive up to 100% of in-state tuition and mandatory fees, even if their usual percentage was lower. The organization said 56% of its scholars attended community colleges in 2025. Basic eligibility did not change, and the 65–100% scale continued at four-year institutions. The change therefore enlarged the amount available on a particular pathway without making every district resident eligible. [9]
A second announcement arrived on October 6, 2026: beginning in fall 2027, the scholarship would extend to accredited four-year historically Black colleges and universities. As of this article’s research date, that is an announced future expansion. It cannot explain the educational or earnings results measured in older cohorts, and there are not yet outcomes from students using that new option. [10]
A long-running experiment with several outcomes
The current Upjohn data resource labels its tables as an April 2025 release and warns that changes in the data version can make comparisons with earlier releases invalid. That warning is important in a twenty-year story: participation totals, current program terms and estimates from early graduating classes answer different questions. The published evidence offers a substantial educational result and a more mixed labor-market result. Neither is a complete accounting of Kalamazoo’s citywide revitalization, which would require evidence about businesses, employment and residents beyond scholarship recipients. [2]
Sources
- The Kalamazoo Promise, program history and reported scholarship totals, checked October 6, 2026SourceBack to text: ↑
- Upjohn Institute, Kalamazoo Promise by the numbers, April 2025 data releaseSourceBack to text: ↑1↑2
- The Kalamazoo Promise, eligibility and termsSourceBack to text: ↑1↑2
- Western Michigan University, Promise scholarship administrationSourceBack to text: ↑
- The Kalamazoo Promise, high-school student process and uncovered costsSourceBack to text: ↑
- Bartik, Hershbein and Lachowska, study findings and identification method, July 23, 2015SourceBack to text: ↑1↑2
- Hershbein, McMullen, Pittelko and Timmeney, Beyond Degrees, Working Paper 21-350, July 2021Technical reportBack to text: ↑
- Upjohn Institute, free tuition and employment/earnings research summarySourceBack to text: ↑
- The Kalamazoo Promise, community-college expansion, April 15, 2026SourceBack to text: ↑1↑2
- The Kalamazoo Promise, HBCU expansion announcement, October 6, 2026SourceBack to text: ↑