In Michigan City, College Is Free for Many High School Graduates

AS IT IS 2016-08-31 In Michigan City, College Is Free for Many High School Graduates

Emily Olivares was surprised when a friend told her she is $50,000 in debt after paying for four years of college.

“I almost had a heart attack,” Olivares said. “That’s a lot of money.”

She has no such problem.

Her tuition for four years at Western Michigan University was about $40,000. But, a program called Kalamazoo Promise paid for it all.

Since 2006, a group of secret donors¹ provided money so students who graduate from Kalamazoo public schools can attend a Michigan state college. The money pays tuition for students in part or fully².

“I don’t think I would be in the same place in life right now if it wasn’t for this program,” said the 22-year-old Olivares.

She recently graduated from Western Michigan University, and works for Kalamazoo Promise. In the future, she hopes to set up international study programs for college students.

Hillary Clinton's Proposed Tuition Program

The Kalamazoo program is now getting more attention because of Hillary Clinton. The Democratic candidate for president is proposing a free tuition program for the entire country. Clinton wants to provide free state college tuition for families with yearly incomes of up to $125,000.

Republican Donald Trump³’s campaign website does not list a plan on college tuition. However, last year, Trump told The Hill newspaper that the federal government should not profit on student loans and should allow students to lower the amount of interest they pay.

In Kalamazoo, the tuition aid program is praised as a program that makes a difference in the small city in America’s Midwest. Kalamzoo has a population of 76,000 and is halfway⁴ between the cities of Chicago, Illinois and Detroit, Michigan.

Bob Jorth is the Kalamazoo Promise executive director. He said the city has about 25 percent more students attending college than it did 10 years ago, when the program began.

Kalamazoo is sending about 85 percent of its high school graduates to college. That percentage, Jorth said, is similar to the rate in much wealthier communities.

Research Group Says Promise Program Has Limits

But the Brookings Institution research group said in a 2015 report that the program has limitations. It found that only twenty percent of African-American high school graduates earned college degrees six years after graduation. Brookings said the overall college degree average for the city’s public school graduates was forty percent.

What it shows, Brookings said, is that Kalamazoo “has not yet come close to resolving the problem of inequality of opportunity” for African-American children.

But several Kalamazoo Promise students said the program made a big difference for them.

Twenty-one-year-old Tinashe Chaponda is now attending Western Michigan University with a lot of help from Kalamazoo Promise

Not having to pay full tuition, means he does not have to spend his free time working at a paid job, Chaponda said. It has freed him to set up a non-profit group to help place students with groups needing volunteers.

Chaponda came to Michigan from Zimbabwe in time to start 8th grade in Kalamazoo’s school system. Today, he gets 70 percent of his tuition covered. Students who attend Kalamazoo public schools for all 12 years get their entire Michigan state college tuition covered.

Chaponda said his goal is to return to Zimbabwe some day and run for president of the southern African country.

“The Promise program allows me to focus on college and still have extra time to start my non-profit,” Chaponda said. “I feel if people are investing in me, the least I can do is give back to the community in some way.”

Other Cities Offer Tuition Aid

Kalamazoo is not the only place with free- or reduced-cost tuition for public school graduates.

The Upjohn Institute for Employment Research reported that about 30 U.S. communities have created similar programs. One of the largest is in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

The Upjohn Institute studied graduation rates in Kalamazoo in 2015. It said there was a 12 percent increase in people earning college degrees within six years of high school graduation.

The U.S. Education Department says that is important for economic reasons. People who graduate from college in America earn $1 million more, over their lifetime, than those who only graduated from high school.

The Promise program also means Kalamazoo public school graduates can attend state colleges without owing a lot of money. The average student debt for 2016 college graduates is $37,000, according to the website, StudentLoanHero.com.

Not everyone supports the idea of free tuition. Norbert Michel, writing for the conservative Heritage Foundation, said free tuition can lead to higher education costs.

“The core problem is that they remove the paying customer -- in this case the student -- from the equation,” Michel said. If students and their parents are paying they will work to keep costs down, he said.

Students Know 'This Is Something Special'

Michael Rice is superintendent⁵ of Kalamazoo Public Schools. He said, teachers start talking about the program in early in a student’s education.

“By sixth grade students understand that this is something special and unique,” Rice said. He said the program has helped increase test scores for students who know they and their families will be able to afford college.

Jorth said it is too early to say what will happen to the program he leads if Clinton is elected and gets her tuition plan approved by Congress.

When Kalamazoo Promise was announced in late 2005, a press release said the donors wanted to give people a reason to remain in Kalamazoo or move to the city. They also wanted a more educated workforce⁶. But the press release did not say who the donors are.

Since then, Jorth said local residents have been trying to guess who in Kalamazoo has enough money to provide the $80 million given the program since 2006.

The secret donors make Jorth’s job pretty special. He may be one of the few people who can say, “I don’t know who I work for.”

Words in this Story

heart attack -- n. a suddedn painful and dangerous condition in which your heart stops beating properly

tuition -- n. money that is paid to a school for the right to study there

entire -- adj. complete or full

focus -- v. to put most of your attention on a matter or subject

graduate -- n. a student who complete his or her studies at a school

core -- adj. the central or major issue

equation -- n. the issue at hand

guess -- v. to form an opinion or give an answer about something when you do not know much or anything about it

1 donors   

n.捐赠者( donor的名词复数 )；献血者；捐血者；器官捐献者

参考例句：

• Please email us to be removed from our active list of blood donors. 假如你想把自己的名字从献血联系人名单中删去，请给我们发电子邮件。
• About half this amount comes from individual donors and bequests. 这笔钱大约有一半来自个人捐赠及遗赠。 来自《简明英汉词典》

2 fully   

adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地

参考例句：

• The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气，然后全部呼出。
• They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。

3 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。

4 halfway   

adj.中途的，不彻底的，部分的；adv.半路地，在中途，在半途

参考例句：

• We had got only halfway when it began to get dark.走到半路，天就黑了。
• In study the worst danger is give up halfway.在学习上，最忌讳的是有始无终。

5 superintendent   

n.监督人，主管，总监；(英国)警务长

参考例句：

• He was soon promoted to the post of superintendent of Foreign Trade.他很快就被擢升为对外贸易总监。
• He decided to call the superintendent of the building.他决定给楼房管理员打电话。

6 workforce   

n.劳动大军，劳动力

参考例句：

• A large part of the workforce is employed in agriculture.劳动人口中一大部分受雇于农业。
• A quarter of the local workforce is unemployed.本地劳动力中有四分之一失业。