Free College Tuition for Future Dearborn Students?
Nearly all public school students in the Kalamazoo school district have the opportunity to attend a college or university for free under the Kalamazoo Promise program. Dearborn’s new school Superintendent Brian J. Whiston would one-day like to be able to offer a “Dearborn Promise” for public school students in our city, too.
The idea of providing scholarships to Dearborn school kids so they can attend higher education institutions still is just in the “idea” stages but it is one of Whiston’s plans for the district. In this recent interview with Dearborn Councilman Robert Abraham, Whiston mentions the idea as one of his long-term goals.
Under Whiston’s preliminary plan, students who attend Dearborn schools from kindergarten to grade 12 would be eligible for two years of free school at Henry Ford Community College. Those students with fewer years in the district would be eligible for smaller amounts of financial aid to the community college.
Just how it would be paid for still would have to be worked out. According to school officials, if the district began saving money for this system for the kindergarten class of 2011 and worked out a plan with Henry Ford Community College to lock in a credit hour rate, it could be possible by about 2024. The plan would require the district to set aside and invest a portion of money each year for some 12 years in order to potentially have enough funding to offer free tuition to students who completed K-12 in Dearborn.
There are other challenges, too. Henry Ford, no doubt, might have concerns about having to lock in a tuition rate for students for 12 years in the future.
What is driving Whiston’s idea, no doubt, is the success it has had in Kalamazoo. That city was losing students until the “Kalamazoo Promise” was created, which provided free tuition to colleges and universities in the state to students who went to school in the district. More people moved to the district and home sales increased, too.
Funding for the Kalamazoo Promise came from a group of undisclosed benefactors, which Dearborn at this point doesn’t have. The program works like this: students graduating from Kalamazoo’s public school system are offered scholarships to local colleges and universities. The longer the student is in the public school system, the greater the scholarship. Those who started at the kindergarten level get a full ride scholarship.
Under the Kalamazoo Promise, the scholarships will cover between 65-100 percent of tuition and fees, starting with the class of 2006. Qualifying students will have entered the public school system no later than the ninth grade.
The entire program was geared around the idea of attracting businesses and families to Kalamazoo and improving property values. Could such a program work in Dearborn? As there are so many unknown variables right now, who knows? But it is an interesting idea.