The excitement is palpable as some 300 El Dorado High School (EHS) seniors don purple robes and school baseball caps and prepare for a long-anticipated ceremony: Academic Signing Day. On this day, students pledge to attend the college of their choice upon graduation. This act has become a spring ritual in this small Arkansas town, where lives have been transformed by a $50 million promise.
That promise is a scholarship program funded by the local Murphy Oil Corporation. All EHS graduates, regardless of need, are eligible for the funds if they have attended school in the district since at least 9th grade. Students may attend any accredited two- or four-year institution in the United States, and their tuition will be paid. It's a deal that appears to be too good to pass up: since the program's inception in 2007, the percentage of EHS graduates enrolled in college has increased from 65 percent to more than 90 percent.
Keeping It Local
The El Dorado Promise is one of about 35 place-based scholarship programs that have sprouted up in U.S. cities in the past 10 years. With these programs, which vary in structure, students are eligible for scholarships if they have been enrolled in the respective city's school district for a certain number of years.
Some, like the El Dorado Promise, are first-dollar scholarships, meaning that students get the funds regardless of any additional financial aid they receive. Others are last-dollar scholarships, in which students receive money after financial aid and other scholarships have been deducted.
Some programs require that students maintain a certain GPA to qualify, and others specify the type of postsecondary education students can pursue. Despite their differences, the programs share a commitment to expand access to higher education, develop a college-going culture in K–12 systems, and support local economic development.
Almost all are designed to stem, if not reverse, the exodus from each community's public schools, says Sylvia Thompson, director of the El Dorado Promise. "Our school district had seen its student population decline for years," she states. "Not only did the Promise stop the decline, but it also increased enrollment." Optimism about future growth abounds, so much so that, for the first time in more than 30 years, El Dorado voters approved plans to build a new $57 million high school.
Thompson believes these outcomes help to validate a theory, held by those who create and administer such programs, that there is a strong correlation between educational advancement and economic revitalization.
An Educated City
Michelle Miller-Adams shares that belief. An associate professor at Grand Valley State University, Miller-Adams is also a research associate at the W.E. Upjohn Institute in Kalamazoo, Mich., where the grandfather of place-based scholarship programs—the Kalamazoo Promise—was unveiled in 2005. She has been studying the effects of the program ever since.
Although she acknowledges that she struggles to directly link the program to improvements in the local economy, it is clear that her city is in much better shape today than it was when she became a resident in 1997. New schools are being built to accommodate the growing population, and Kalamazoo can legitimately bill itself as "an educated city," says Miller-Adams.
Of course, "money only gets you part of the way," Miller-Adams concedes. If the Kalamazoo Promise opens the doors to postsecondary education, schools in the district must prepare students to walk through them.
The program has been a catalyst for school improvement, says Bob Jorth, executive director of the Kalamazoo Promise. Initial research shows a correlation between the program and both an improvement in some students' academic performance and a boost in their motivation to do well in school. What's more, all students are being held to higher expectations. "The conversation has shifted," Jorth observes. "Students are no longer asked if they will go to college, but rather where they will go."
Despite the positive shift, college completion remains a challenge, says Jorth. According to The Chronicle of Higher Education's College Completion project, Michigan's 2010 four-year graduation rate for public institutions hovered around 33 percent; the six-year rate was around 61 percent. Jorth thinks the numbers could be better and, fortunately, the anonymous Kalamazoo Promise donors recognize that "it's not going to be a straight line for some of these students." Thus, the Kalamazoo Promise stipulates that students have 10 years to earn their diplomas. "The program has to be flexible if [students] are to be successful," says Jorth.
Finding Community Support
Preparing students to take advantage of these programs also requires community support, says Miller-Adams. Local churches, businesses, and nonprofits can offer tutors and mentors, internships, school supplies, and other assistance. Only through such collaboration can a community make full use of the gift it has been given, she asserts.
In Pittsburgh, community involvement is especially critical, as the city's program relies on donations from a broad donor pool. Saleem Ghubril, executive director of the Pittsburgh Promise, says that although the program was launched in 2006, it "got some real muscle" a year later when the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) pledged to donate $100 million to the effort. The only caveat: the city and the school district would have to match the center's contribution, dollar for dollar—and then some.
"UPMC would give us $1 for every $1.50 we raised," says Ghubril. Thus began a 10-year race to raise enough money to bring the scholarship fund to $250 million—enough to allow the program to operate in perpetuity. Pittsburgh is about halfway to its goal, according to data posted on the program's online dashboard.
Community support is also needed to get students to attend class so they become scholarship eligible. Pittsburgh educators hope that by linking the Promise scholarship to a minimum 2.5 GPA and 90 percent attendance record, students will be sufficiently engaged in their learning.
That Extra Push
In El Dorado, increasing the number of AP classes became a necessity in helping students prepare for college. "We went from offering one AP calculus course to offering three," says Thompson. AP English is now taught all year long.
Clair Barnhouse, a pre-AP English teacher at EHS, has also seen increased student interest in the New Tech Network, a magnet program within the high school. The New Tech program employs project-based learning to help students hone the 21st century skills—such as communication, collaboration, and problem solving—that are crucial to success in college and the future workplace.
Persistence is another trait that the New Tech program underscores and that Barnhouse stresses in all of her classes. "I grade my students on their grit … and some of my high-achieving students are failing for the first time," Barnhouse says. "I have to help them learn that failure isn't a dead end; it is part of the process."
Helping students push through such struggles in a safe place will help them become resilient, she states, adding that if students are pushed for the first time in college, "it's going to be scary for them."
Return on Investment
Persistence is a trait that Barnhouse has in spades. She was a sophomore at EHS when the Promise was announced. "I felt a huge burden lift from my shoulders," she recalls. Barnhouse, now a first-generation college graduate, had already determined that she would become a teacher and was working hard to secure scholarships that would allow her to accomplish this.
"I felt a lot of pressure because I knew my parents couldn't afford to put two people through school, and I didn't want my choices to affect my brother's opportunities." The Promise not only alleviated those concerns, but it also allowed Barnhouse to forgo working while getting her degree. "Many of my friends had to balance hectic work schedules to pay for other college expenses," she says. "Going to school was my job."
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Why We Stayed: The Pierce Family's Story
When the economic bottom fell out for the Pierce family in 2011, they had a choice: they could leave their home in Kalamazoo and head for better employment opportunities, or they could stay put and make it work.
Thanks to the Kalamazoo Promise, which guaranteed the Pierce children a full scholarship to any Michigan school of their choice, the Pierces opted to stay and reinvent themselves.
"The Promise was huge for our family," says Rebecca Pierce, who now works at a nonprofit organization in the community. "We never had a moment's worry about our children's education."
In Kalamazoo, students receive a portion of the Promise scholarship based on the number of years they are enrolled in the district's schools. Because the Pierce children had attended Kalamazoo's schools since kindergarten, they were both eligible for 100 percent of the scholarship. Both ultimately decided to attend the University of Michigan—one studied Russian, the other studied astrophysics. With tuition and fees running upwards of $13,000 per year, the gift of the Promise is unbeatable, Pierce notes. "Young people need to have a good grounding, a strong higher education that exposes them to a variety of ideas and ways to solve problems. It's just so important."
The educational opportunity the Promise provides is epic. The effect of this brand of philanthropy on the community is an added bonus, Pierce says. "We stayed here for a pragmatic reason, but also an emotional one. We feel such a strong connection to this place. People care about and help each other. People here understand that by helping their neighbors, they help themselves."