Assistant Professor Denisa Gándara, Department of Education Policy and Leadership, has received one of three American Educational Research Association (AERA) research grants to study free college or “Promise” programs with co-PI Amy Li (University of Northern Colorado).
Promise programs, which cover college tuition (and sometimes other costs) for all eligible students in a geographic region, have proliferated across the United States, with recent adoptions in New York, California, and Dallas County.
Gándara and Li’s study is the first to examine, at a national scale, which groups of students benefit most from these programs. Specifically, the study examines how enrollments change at community colleges that are subject to Promise programs, and how effects vary by Promise program design features. The study ends October 2019.