Kalamazoo Promise
Encyclopedia
Michigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
's state colleges or universities for graduates of the public high schools
Kalamazoo Public Schools
Kalamazoo Public Schools are located in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Graduates of the district are eligible to receive scholarships through the Kalamazoo Promise, a program launched in 2005 and funded by anonymous donors....
of Kalamazoo, Michigan
Kalamazoo, Michigan
The area on which the modern city stands was once home to Native Americans of the Hopewell culture, who migrated into the area sometime before the first millennium. Evidence of their early residency remains in the form of a small mound in downtown's Bronson Park. The Hopewell civilization began to...
. 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
Michigan State University
Michigan State University is a public research university in East Lansing, Michigan, USA. Founded in 1855, it was the pioneer land-grant institution and served as a model for future land-grant colleges in the United States under the 1862 Morrill Act.MSU pioneered the studies of packaging,...
and Western Michigan University
Western Michigan University
Western Michigan University is a public university located in Kalamazoo, Michigan, United States. The university was established in 1903 by Dwight B. Waldo, and as of the Fall 2010 semester, its enrollment is 25,045....
. 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 |
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, have similar "Promise" programs, and other programs are being developed in many other communities. These communities and others have joined PromiseNet, a network of communities that run or plan similar place-based scholarship programs. The PromiseNet 2010 Conference, "Investing in Youth for Community Transformation," is meant to foster such programs.