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Institutional Expenditures and Staffing in the Free-College Era","","Research on promise programs has documented student outcomes, yet limited evidence explains how institutions themselves behave during the promise era. This study examines how a first statewide promise program affects institutional expenditures and staffing, using complementary difference-in-differences and synthetic control methods. Results indicate institutions reallocated spending from instruction and supports toward higher institutional grant awards, with no meaningful staffing-level effects observed. Findings inform policy on free-college programs’ broader institutional impacts.",{"@graph":69,"@context":122},[70,84,105],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":40,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/spending-more-or-spending-less-institutional-expenditures-and-staffing-in-the-free-college-era/590113/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/spending-more-or-spending-less-institutional-expenditures-and-staffing-in-the-free-college-era/590113.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"Adam","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-10-22","2026-10-15",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":81},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",{"@type":106,"mainEntity":107},"FAQPage",[108,114,118],{"name":109,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":111},"What problem does the study address about promise programs?","Question",{"text":112,"@type":113},"It investigates how institutions change spending and staffing in the promise era, not just how students are affected.","Answer",{"name":115,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":116},"How did the authors estimate the program’s impacts?",{"text":117,"@type":113},"They use complementary difference-in-differences and synthetic control strategies to estimate effects of the first statewide promise program.",{"name":119,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":120},"What were the main findings on institutional expenditures and staffing?",{"text":121,"@type":113},"Institutions diverted expenditures away from instruction and supports toward larger institutional grant awards, while staffing levels showed no meaningful impact.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":124,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":126,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":128,"site_id":62},590113,1792209234,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":131},{"doc_id":128,"user_id":132,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":133,"doc_module":4,"category_id":39,"category_name":40,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":134,"file_id":135,"file_url":136,"file_type":137,"file_size":138,"view_count":81,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":139,"language":140,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":141,"faqs":142,"seo_title":143,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":144,"read_time":145},1374404737137,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_155a257f0dc6eb9ab79c44ca47cae57d","AERA Open  \nJanuary-December 2021, Vol. 7, No. 1, pp. 1–21 DOI: 10. 1177/23328584211034491  \nArticle reuse guidelines: [sagepub.com/journals-permissions](sagepub.com/journals-permissions)[ ](sagepub.com/journals-permissions)© The Author(s) 2021. [https://journals.sagepub.com/home/ero](https://journals.sagepub.com/home/ero)  \nSpending More or Spending Less? Institutional Expenditures and  \nStaffing in the Free-College Era  \nTaylor K. Odle  \nUniversity of Pennsylvania  \nAlex B. Monday  \nUniversity of Georgia  \nWhile research has documented outcomes for students served by promise programs, few studies have considered the behavior of institutions themselves in the promise era. A new source of revenue combined with larger and more diverse cohorts is likely to motivate changes in spending and staffing—decisions instrumental to student access and success. We employ complementary difference-in-differences and synthetic control strategies to estimate impacts of the first statewide promise program on these two outcomes. Findings suggest institutions diverted expenditures away from instruction, academic support, and institutional support toward greater institutional grant awards. We find no meaningful impact on staffing levels. While some institutional actions may further support the access and success goals of promise programs, the diversity of programs across the nation suggests not all may follow suit. This study should inform policy makers considering the full extent of outcomes of free-college programs and invigorate further research on institutional responses.  \nKeywords: college expenditures, college promise programs, college staffing, community colleges, difference-in-differences, educational policy, finance, financial aid, free college, higher education, policy analysis, quasi-experimental analysis, synthetic control, Tennessee Promise  \nIntroduction  \nFollowing the 2005 start of Kalamazoo Promise,“freecollege” programs gained political traction at federal, state, and institutional levels (Billings, 2018). The College Promise Campaign (2019) reported that over 300 promise programs exist across the nation, with 23 states already offering a statewide program and at least 13 more beginning implementation (Kanter & Armstrong, 2019) . While promise programs vary widely in their design, they generally consist of a place-based scholarship aimed at increasing students’access to college (Miller-Adams, 2015; Perna & Leigh, 2018). Across multiple states and regional contexts, existing literature has suggested that promise programs not only increase college enrollments, but emerging evidence suggests they may also alter the composition of institutions’student bodies, either by increasing enrollments of lowincome or racial-minority students or by diverting university-bound students toward promise-eligible community colleges (Bartik et al., 2019; Gándara & Li, 2020; Gurantz, 2020) . Promise programs are also fundamental changes to institutions’ resource environments, representing the availability of a new source of revenue, a change to an existing revenue stream, or, for new institutionally funded programs,  \na constraint on other expenditure areas. In any of these realities, institutions facing increased enrollments, particularly among more academically, racially, or socioeconomically diverse students, may be called to alter expenditures to meet the needs of larger, more diverse cohorts of students or to consider how their operations can best serve a growing student body. This is particularly likely if institutions, like community colleges, face existing capacity constraints (Goldrick-Rab, 2010; Palmer, 2013) . In all, whether colleges strive to serve new students or to maintain or acquire new resources (or both), promise programs likely influence insti  \ntutional behavior (Perna et al., 2020; Perna et al., 2021) .  \nGiven their political popularity, the growth of promise programs has rapidly outpaced evaluations of their effects, but work t","cbCailuQb7Lu7taq","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCailuQb7Lu7taq","pdf",1332406,21,"English","# Introduction\n## Institutional behavior in the promise era\n## Study approach and research focus\n# Findings and implications\n## Expenditure reallocations\n## Staffing effects","[{\"question\":\"What problem does the study address about promise programs?\",\"answer\":\"It investigates how institutions change spending and staffing in the promise era, not just how students are affected.\"},{\"question\":\"How did the authors estimate the program’s impacts?\",\"answer\":\"They use complementary difference-in-differences and synthetic control strategies to estimate effects of the first statewide promise program.\"},{\"question\":\"What were the main findings on institutional expenditures and staffing?\",\"answer\":\"Institutions diverted expenditures away from instruction and supports toward larger institutional grant awards, while staffing levels showed no meaningful impact.\"}]","Spending More or Spending Less? Institutional Expenditures and Staffing in the Free-College Era | PDF",1792068819,53]