The Effect of the El Dorado Promise Scholarship on Higher Education, K–12, and Community Outcomes

Gary W. Ritter and Elise Swanson

Click here to view and purchase Improving Research-Based Knowledge of College Promise Programs

The authors present a comprehensive evaluation of the El Dorado Promise, a generous place-based scholarship program. They used interrupted time series and comparative interrupted time series analyses to examine the extent to which the implementation of the program resulted in enrollment growth in the district. They further assessed the extent to which the program improved student math achievement, using a student-level matching design. Finally, they evaluated the program’s effect on the postsecondary success of El Dorado students, using a difference-in-differences design. They found that the enrollment decline that El Dorado had been experiencing prior to the promise halted when the program was initiated in 2007. They further found that the promise implementation was associated with a meaningful and statistically significant gain in math achievement between 2006–2007 and 2010–2011. Finally, their analysis shows that the El Dorado students were significantly more likely to enter a university or college and to earn a bachelor’s degree due to the promise program.