The Kalamazoo Promise is a pledge by a group of anonymous donors to pay up to 100 percent of tuition at any of Michigan's state colleges or universities for graduates of the public high schools of Kalamazoo, Michigan. To receive the minimum 65% benefit, students must have lived within the Kalamazoo School District, attended public high school there for four years, and graduated. To receive a full scholarship, students must have attended Kalamazoo public schools since kindergarten.
The program, unveiled at a November 10, 2005, Kalamazoo Board of Education meeting, is also viewed as an economic development tool for Kalamazoo. Since the Kalamazoo Promise was announced, enrollment in the school district has grown by 16%, test scores have improved, and a greater proportion of high-school graduates are attending college. In 2010 alone, the Kalamazoo Public School district saw enrollment rise 3% to 12,409.
Tuition checks began flowing in 2006. As of summer 2010, the program had paid out $18 million in tuition for about 2,000 high school graduates of Kalamazoo’s two high schools and three alternative schools, according to executive administrator Robert Jorth. Most of the money has gone to The University of Michigan, Michigan State University and Western Michigan University. Promise-funded students have enrolled in all but one of Michigan's 15 state universities. As of October 2010, a total of 60 Promise-funded students had obtained bachelor’s degrees.
| Length of attendance | Proportion of full tuition |
|---|---|
| K–12 | 100% |
| 1–12 | 95% |
| 2–12 | 95% |
| 3–12 | 95% |
| 4–12 | 90% |
| 5–12 | 85% |
| 6–12 | 80% |
| 7–12 | 75% |
| 8–12 | 70% |
| 9–12 | 65% |
| 10–12 | None |
| 11–12 | None |
| 12 | None |
Read more about Kalamazoo Promise: Similar Programs, Success Rate of Students
Famous quotes containing the word promise:
“Early education can only promise to help make the third and fourth and fifth years of life good ones. It cannot insure without fail that any tomorrow will be successful. Nothing “fixes” a child for life, no matter what happens next. But exciting, pleasing early experiences are seldom sloughed off. They go with the child, on into first grade, on into the child’s long life ahead.”
—James L. Hymes, Jr. (20th century)