The kalamazoo promise scholarship: college funds boost grades of african american students.
Bartik, Timothy J.
The Kalamazoo Promise provides college scholarships to graduates of
Kalamazoo Public Schools (KPS), a midsized urban school district in
Michigan that is racially and economically diverse. Anonymous donors
promise to pay up to 100 percent of college tuition for any KPS graduate
who attends a public college or university in Michigan. Scholarships
start at 65 percent of college tuition for students who enrolled in KPS
in 9th grade and stay until graduation, and increase to 100 percent for
students who have attended since kindergarten. The scholarship is not
limited to students with strong academic records or demonstrated
financial need. Students must simply get into college and maintain a 2.0
grade-point average (GPA) while enrolled. Announced in 2005, the
Kalamazoo Promise is unusual among scholarship programs in its
universality and generosity.
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As a model for revitalizing an urban school district and its
community, the Promise, as it is called, has attracted much attention
and many imitators. At least 24 other areas around the country have
launched or are trying to launch Promise-style programs, with private or
public funding. In part because of the Promise, President Obama
delivered the commencement address to the graduating class of Kalamazoo
Central High School in 2010.
Given the popularity and cost of the programs, there is a need for
research to determine the size of the benefits of Promise-style efforts,
or indeed, whether there are any discernible benefits. The tuition
subsidies available through the Promise should create incentives for
higher academic performance. Students who might otherwise attend Western
Michigan University (WMU), the state campus located in Kalamazoo, may
use the tuition subsidy to enroll at higher-ranked schools such as
Michigan State University or the University of Michigan. Students who
would otherwise have attended the local community college may use the
subsidy to matriculate at WMU. And students who without the Promise
might not have attended college at all may take advantage of the benefit
to go to a community college. Previous research suggests that the
Promise has in fact increased interest among eligible KPS graduates in
enrolling at Michigan's flagship schools.
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Because admission to and graduation from more-demanding colleges
requires students to have stronger academic preparation, the tuition
benefits of the Promise also have the potential to encourage students to
work harder and achieve more in high school. Yet despite the
Promise's incentives for improving performance, students may not
respond as hoped. Some students may view the Promise's benefits as
too uncertain and too delayed, and students who want to improve their
academic performance may not know how to do so.
Our study takes advantage of the unexpected announcement of the
Kalamazoo Promise to study its effects on student achievement and
behavior in high school. Specifically, we examine how the achievement
and behavior of individual students eligible for a tuition subsidy
changed after the program was launched. We find clear evidence that the
Promise reduced student behavior problems. Our results on academic
performance for all students are unfortunately not precise enough to
draw strong conclusions. Even though our estimates of the program's
impact are not statistically significant, we cannot rule out the
possibility of substantial positive effects. For African American
students, however, the Promise both improved behavior and had a dramatic
positive effect on high school GPAs.
Kalamazoo Public Schools
A predominantly urban school system, the Kalamazoo Public Schools
have faced declining enrollment for many years. This reflects, in part,
the modest pace of economic growth in Michigan and Kalamazoo. It also
reflects the Kalamazoo district's location in a center city that
has more economic problems than the surrounding metropolitan area. For
example, family poverty rates as of the 2000 census were 13.6 percent in
the city of Kalamazoo and 6.5 percent in all of Kalamazoo County.
The Kalamazoo school district has historically had many low-income
students and students from diverse ethnic backgrounds. In the years
before the Promise was announced, although KPS retained a considerable
percentage of white students and students who did not qualify for free
or reduced-price lunch, the percentage of both groups of students was
falling. Since the advent of the Kalamazoo Promise, KPS enrollment has
been on the rise. Furthermore, enrollment has climbed proportionately
for all ethnic groups, so the ethnic percentages have stabilized (see
Figure 1). Previous studies indicate that these patterns reflect a large
one-time increase in the number of students entering KPS the year
following the Promise's announcement, accompanied by a permanent
decline in the exit rate among students already enrolled.
The Kalamazoo Promise was funded by anonymous donors who, according
to the school district, had three primary goals: 1) to promote local
economic and community development, in part by attracting parents and
businesses to the Kalamazoo area; 2) to boost educational achievement
and attainment; and 3) to increase confidence in KPS.
The Promise is available to all students who reside in the
district, graduate from KPS, and have been KPS students for four years
or longer. The scholarship must be used within 10 years of high school
graduation. The size of the benefit depends on the length of continuous
enrollment in the KPS system. The Promise covers 100 percent of all
tuition costs and mandatory fees for up to four years for students who
enrolled in KPS in kindergarten. For those who enrolled in grades 1
through 3, the scholarship covers 95 percent of those costs. The tuition
benefit decreases by 5 percent per year as the number of years of
continuous enrollment declines, covering 65 percent of costs for those
enrolling in 9th grade. A student entering KPS in grade 10 or afterward
is ineligible for Promise tuition benefits.
Other than onset of continuous enrollment, no aspect of a
student's K-12 experience or family background affects eligibility.
Students do not have to demonstrate financial need, maintain any minimum
GPA in high school, or take any particular mix of courses. Students
obviously need to gain admission to a Michigan college, however, to
receive Promise benefits.
The scholarship is available to all students who are admitted to
and enroll at any public university or community college in the state of
Michigan. The students must attend full time (defined as a minimum of 12
credit hours) and maintain a 2.0 GPA while in college. Students who fall
below a 2.0 GPA can become eligible again for the Promise if they
continue attending college on their own (or their family's) dime
and succeed in increasing their cumulative GPA above the 2.0 threshold.
Students are eligible for Promise benefits for up to 130 credits of
undergraduate college or university education, typically enough to
complete a four-year degree program. The Promise's benefits can be
applied to certificate programs at community colleges, in addition to
programs leading to an associate or bachelor's degree.
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The Kalamazoo Promise has been widely used. Between 80 and 90
percent of KPS graduates have been eligible for at least some Promise
benefits. Of those eligible, between 82 and 85 percent at some point
have taken advantage of their benefits. We estimate that the total value
of the scholarship for a typical student over four years ranges from
about $18,000 with the 65 percent benefit to about $27,000 at the 100
percent benefit. These averages include enrollment at colleges with very
different prices, in the case of the 100 percent benefit, ranging from
under $5,000 for four years of tuition at the least costly option
(Kalamazoo's local community college) to more than $55,000 at the
most expensive (the University of Michigan).
Data and Methodology
Our data come from KPS administrative records. We focus our
analysis on high school students for several reasons. First, it allows
the analysis to include students who are ineligible for the Promise
because they entered after 9th grade and can therefore serve as a
comparison group for eligible students. Second, for high school students
rather than younger students, the tuition benefits of the Kalamazoo
Promise are closer in time. Third, high school students are more likely
than younger students to believe that their achievement and behavior in
school will affect their admission prospects at more-selective colleges.
We examine data on 9th- through 12th-grade students from the school
years 2003-04 to 2007-08. This period includes two pre-Promise school
years, the year the Promise scholarship was announced, and two
post-Promise school years. The information we have on each student
includes demographic characteristics, credits completed, grade-point
averages, and disciplinary actions, including days of suspension and
detention.
In each year, we calculate for each student what the Promise
subsidy would have been had the Promise been in effect for that year and
had the student continued attending KPS until graduation. We call this
the student's "virtual Promise benefit," which in 2003-04
and 2004-05 was indeed virtual in the sense that the student was unaware
of it, as the Promise was not announced until November 2005. Therefore,
we would assume that any effect of this simulated Promise benefit before
2005 reflects consequences that are associated with the grade level in
which the student entered KPS rather than the effect of a Promise
benefit of which the student had no knowledge.
On November 10, 2005, students became aware of the potential
Promise benefits that would accrue to them given their enrollment in KPS
to date. It is possible that Promise benefits had some effect on student
achievement and behavior starting on that date. However, it would also
be reasonable to assume that it took some time for students to
understand and respond to the incentives of the Promise. By November
2005, students had already made certain decisions about that academic
year, such as what courses to enroll in for fall 2005. When the first
full post-Promise year began in fall 2006, students may have more fully
understood what the program might mean for their future.
We measure the effect of the Promise by comparing the achievement
and behavior of students before and after they became aware of their
benefits. For example, students who were enrolled in KPS since
kindergarten found themselves eligible for a 100 percent tuition
scholarship after the Promise was announced. We examine whether their
achievement and behavior improved more after they learned of the
scholarship than that of students who did not become eligible for a
scholarship because they had enrolled in KPS much later. This comparison
amounts to a natural experiment, because whether students became
eligible for a scholarship was determined by enrollment decisions their
families made without knowledge of the Promise.
Because of their enrollment status in KPS, the overwhelming
majority of students who are eligible for any benefit are eligible for a
benefit of 80 percent or more of college tuition. This suggests that it
would be difficult to make fine distinctions for students in different
tuition-subsidy groups. In addition, it is unclear whether the
difference between a 65 percent subsidy and greater subsidies is salient
for most high-school students. We therefore focus on differences in
academic achievement and behavior between Promise-eligible and
-ineligible students, before and after the Promise was announced.
By comparing changes in the behavior and achievement of eligible
and ineligible students, our analysis is likely to understate the
overall effects of the Promise because it will not capture any effects
on ineligible students. For example, if eligible students improve their
achievement and behavior, ineligible students may be positively
affected. In addition, the Promise triggered efforts by the school
district to increase overall academic standards and college focus among
all students. Because of the Promise, teachers and parents may also have
increased their expectations in ways that benefited all students. Our
comparison of changes from before and after the Promise for eligible
versus ineligible students will only capture the narrow effects of the
Promise's monetary offer. It will not fully capture the
Promise's effects on overall school climate through changes in the
attitudes and actions of administrators, teachers, and parents.
We focus our analysis on four primary outcomes that reflect
possible student responses to the Promise: days suspended, days in
detention, whether the student completed any course credits in the
school year, and GPA. Our data reveal low pre-Promise levels of behavior
and achievement, leaving plenty of room for improvement. Prior to the
Promise, more than 20 percent of students received an out-of-school
suspension each year, and the average GPA was around 2.0 (a C average).
Results
Our results indicate that the Kalamazoo Promise increased by 9
percentage points the chances that a student earned any high school
credits in 2007-08, the third year after the program's
announcement, but did not show increases in the two previous years. We
also find that the Promise decreased the number of days a student was
suspended by 1.3 days in the second year after the announcement and by
1.8 days in the third year. Our estimates of the Promise's effect
on GPA and days in detention are in the expected direction, with
eligible students earning higher grades and spending less time in
detention, but fall short of statistical significance. In general, our
results are consistent with the notion that the Promise had little
effect in the first year, when it was not announced until November, but
some noteworthy effects in the second and third years (see Figure 2).
Previous research on educational interventions often finds
different effects for students from different racial groups. The diverse
nature of KPS allows us to analyze student outcomes by race. Our results
for African American students are striking. The data suggest that the
GPA for this subgroup increased sharply following the announcement of
the Promise and continues to improve for Promise-eligible African
American students. These effects are quite large; for example, GPAs for
African American students increased by 0.2 points the year the program
was announced, by 0.3 points the second year, and by a remarkable 0.7
points in year three. The latter effect amounts to an increase of 63
percent of a standard deviation.
One might wonder why the Promise effects on the GPAs of African
American students continue to increase over time rather than showing a
one-time jump. We would expect to find such a continuing increase if
following the Promise there are virtuous cycles that translate into
higher performance; for example, higher effort and performance in one
school year could lead to still higher performance the next school year.
For African American students in KPS, we also find impacts on
behavior, specifically, a decrease of two days of suspension in the
first full post-Promise year (2006-07) and a three-day decrease in
2007-08. A possible explanation for the difference in results between
African American students and students overall is that, on average,
African American students in KPS have lower GPAs and spend more days in
suspension than their white peers. The decrease in the number of days
spent in suspension might have shifted past some "tipping
point" beyond which more presence in the classroom leads to higher
grades, while leaving the white students less affected.
Conclusion
This study uses the large change in expected college tuition costs
caused by the surprise announcement of the Kalamazoo Promise's
tuition subsidies to measure the Promise's short-term effects on
student achievement and behavior. The structure of the Kalamazoo Promise
benefit formula creates a natural experiment for evaluating the impact
of the scholarship on Promise-eligible students. We find positive
effects for credits earned and a decrease in days spent in suspension
for all students, but we find significant effects on GPA only for
African Americans.
It should be noted that the effects of the Promise may have
increased further in subsequent years. In addition, our paper can only
examine individual effects on eligible students of the Kalamazoo Promise
due to the monetary incentives. Promise effects that stem from changes
in the school district's atmosphere or morale or from peer effects
cannot be captured by our methodology. More research is needed to
analyze these broader consequences.
Our overall results are consistent with the idea that students do
not fully understand how to change their behavior to obtain better
outcomes in some areas, such as course grades. If this is the case, even
strong incentives for higher academic performance may not produce
notable improvements in key outcomes. In our study, students may have
understood that the opportunities presented by the Promise depend on
displaying better behavior in school, and therefore reacted to the
Promise in ways that resulted in fewer students spending time in
suspension. Yet the students may simply not know how to achieve a higher
GPA.
If this hypothesis is correct, our findings suggest that
Promise-style policies, and other policies focused on making higher
education more affordable, may be usefully supplemented by helping
students better understand how their behavior affects their future.
Subsidies for higher education may have a greater impact on student
achievement and behavior if students understand the link between their
behavior and work habits and their GPA, and the link between their GPA
and the future rewards offered by programs like the Promise.
For African American students, the Promise both improved behavior
and had a dramatic positive effect on high school GPAs.
The Promise decreased the number of days a student was suspended by
1.8 days in the third year.
* indicates statistical significance at the 90 percent confidence
level
NOTE: Each chart shows the estimated effect of being eligible for
Kalamazoo Promise funds on the relevant outcome in the first three years
after the program's announcement.
SOURCE: Authors calculations
Timothy J. Bartik is senior economist and Marta Lachowska is
economist at the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research. This
article is based on a 2013 study published in Research in Labor
Economics.
Responding to the Promise (Fire 2)
(2a) By the third year after its announcement, the Kalamazoo Promise
had increased the chances that a student earned any high school
credits by 9 percentage points.
Chance of Earning Any Credits
Percent
2005-06 2006-07 2007-08
All students -1.0 3.3 8.8*
African Americans -4.5 -0.5 12.8
(2b) Becoming eligible for Promise funds also caused African American
students to earn higher grades.
GPA points
Grade Point Average
2005-06 2006-07 2007-08
All students 0.06 0.13 0.21
African Americans 0.20* 0.32* 0.71
(2c) The Promise decreased the number of days students spent
in suspension in its second and thi rd years, with especially
large 4fects for African American students.
Days Suspended
Days
2005-06 2006-07 2007-08
All students -0.36 -1.30* -1.80*
African Americans -0.36 -1.90* -3.13*
(2d) Days spent in detention also declined, though the
effects were not statistically significant.
Days in Detention
Days
2005-06 2006-07 2007-08
All students -0.04 -0.07 -0.18
African Americans -0.02 -0.18 -0.18
* indicates statistical significance at the 90 percent confidence
level
NOTE: Each chart shows the estimated effect of being eligible for
Kalamazoo Promise funds on the relevant outcome in the first
three years after the program's announcement.
SOURCE: Authors calculations
