Free Tuition

Abstract

This chapter reviews what has been called a free tuition approach to higher education funding, acknowledging its laudable goals. It argues whether free tuition will make a significant difference in higher education affordability, especially in light of the already low net cost of community colleges. The chapter is concerned with the fact that free tuition treats unequal students equally by subsidizing the wealthy as well as those from low-income families. The contemporary push for tuition-free education beyond high school stems not from the top-down advocacy of national leaders, but from the bottom-up actions of local promise programs that augment state and federal financial aid monies received by community college students with what Miller-Adams calls "place-based scholarships". State initiatives concerns notwithstanding, the last-dollar, incentive approach to free tuition pioneered by the promise movement has had great appeal.