AERA Open - How Well Do Students Understand “Free Community College”? Promise Programs as Informational Interventions

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Adam

AERA Open article examines how last-dollar community college Promise programs influence students’ understanding of affordability. Although these programs are often marketed as “free college,” the study finds students frequently misinterpret the last-dollar structure and eligibility, with administrative data indicating limited funding reach. Drawing on a case study, the article explains “messaging effects” as both clarification and misdirection, rooted in baseline misconceptions about college costs and need-based aid.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages13

Reading Time33 min

AccessFree to download

How the study frames Promise programs

Messaging effects and student misunderstanding

Promise programs in context

Origins, designs, and policy goals

Evidence from the case study

Baseline conceptions, communication, and recipient understanding

Research questions and study aims

AERA Open January-December 2023, Vol. 9, No. 1, pp. 1–13 DOI: 10. 1177/23328584231166948 Article reuse guidelines: [sagepub.com/journals-permissions](sagepub.com/journals-permissions)[ ](sagepub.com/journals-permissions)© The Author(s) 2023. [https://journals.sagepub.com/home/ero](https://journals.sagepub.com/home/ero) How Well Do Students Understand “Free Community College”? Promise Programs as Informational Interventions David B. Monaghan Shippensburg University Given the low price of community college relative to need-based aid, last-dollar “free community college”(i.e., Promise) programs often only marginally reduce students’ real costs. Given this reality, some claim that these programs impact students largely through “messaging”: information conveying the affordability of community college. However, it is unclear how such messaging works in concept or practice. Drawing on a case study, I document the paradoxical ways last-dollar community college Promise programs alter students’ understanding of college affordability. Reflecting program marketing, students typically understood the program as simply “free college,” with little grasp of last-dollar structure or eligibility criteria. Many believed the Promise program paid their tuition, but administrative data showed the program funded very few students. Student misunderstanding of the program is traceable to a baseline conception of college as “expensive” and to a tenuous grasp of need-based aid. Promise programs’“messaging effects” are predicated upon such prevalent misconceptions. The “message” is a mixture of clarification and misdirection, revealing afactual situation (that community college is often “tuition-free”) through an equivocation (that the Promise program is making it free). Keywords: case studies, community colleges, educational policy, free college programs, higher education, in-depth interviewing, postsecondary education, promise programs, qualitative research “Free college” or “tuition-free college” programs (sometimes called Promise programs) are increasingly common. Some researchers identify 216 local and 23 statewide programs (Jones et al., 2020; Miller-Adams et al., 2020); others list 393 or 425 combined state and local programs (College Promise, 2021; Perna & Leigh, n.d.). Most were created since 2014 (MillerAdams et al., 2020). They vary widely in generosity, applicability (i.e, where they may be used), and eligibility criteria, and they are funded and operated by a diverse set of actors: states, municipalities, colleges, philanthropic foundations, nonprofits, and corporations (Iriti, Page & Bickel, 2018; Miller-Adams, 2015). Promise programs all share the provision of a broadly available financial award and a claim to reduce economic barriers to college participation, and they have been portrayed as steps toward comprehensive nationwide college affordability (Bartik & Miller-Adams, 2009; Miller-Adams, 2021). The modern “Promise” movement began with the 2005 launch of the Kalamazoo Promise (KP), a “first-dollar”scholarship 1 fully covering in-state two-or four-year public college tuition for graduates of Kalamazoo public high schools (Miller-Adams, 2009). KP spawned many imitators, most of which added need-or merit-based eligibility, opted for a “last-dollar” design, or only funded community college attendance (Billings, 2018a; Miller-Adams, 2015) . Since the 2014 launch of the Tennessee Promise, most new programs have been last-dollar community college (LDCC) scholarships (Bell & Gándara, 2021; Callahan et al., 2019) . Increasingly, scholars acknowledge that because community college tuition is typically less than a full Pell grant, LDCC programs do little to reduce college costs, particularly for lower-income students (Miller-Adams, 2015; Poutre & Voight, 2018) . Nonetheless, such programs seem to spur increased enrollment, even among low-income students (Carruthers & Fox, 2016; Gándara & Li, 2020) . The commonest explanati

FAQs

Why do last-dollar Promise programs sometimes only marginally reduce students’ real costs?

Because community college tuition is often lower than full need-based aid, last-dollar awards may only slightly offset students’ costs, especially for lower-income students.

What do students typically think Promise programs provide?

Students often understand the programs as simply “free college,” with limited grasp of the last-dollar structure and eligibility criteria.

How does the article explain “messaging effects”?

The article argues that the program’s message mixes clarification and misdirection, revealing an allegedly “tuition-free” situation while using equivocation that obscures the last-dollar reality.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Adam