Keeping the Promise: Early Outcomes of Tennessee’s Tuition-Free College Initiative

Emily House and Madison Dell

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In pursuit of the state’s ambitious goal of 55% postsecondary attainment by 2025, Tennessee launched its statewide free community and technical college program, the Tennessee Promise, in 2015. This chapter explores the characteristics of program participants compared to nontreated students in earlier community college cohorts and examines the impact of the Tennessee Promise on college enrollment compared to nontreated states. Post-promise community college students have a higher family adjusted gross income and are less likely to be first-generation students than are prepromise, nontreated cohorts. A difference-in-differences analysis shows that the Tennessee Promise had a significant, positive effect on total enrollment of first-time, full-time, degree-seeking freshmen at two-year public institutions.