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Nearly 20 states have adopted college scholarship programs, many offering the possibility of free tuition, helping to increase the number of students being able to gain access to higher education across the US.
As school tuitions rise year after year, the dream of college is eluding many people due to skyrocketing costs. Tuition fees at public four-year colleges and universities have jumped 35 percent in the last decade.
During that same time, at four private schools, average tuition and fees rose some 26 percent. Then of course, students can spend decades paying off the debt they accrued getting an education.
“Today, college is what high school was — it should always be an option even if you can’t afford it,” said New York Governor Andrew Cuomo in a press release.
Currently, Tennessee, Arkansas, Indiana, Minnesota, Montana, Oregon and Rhode Island have free community college programs throughout the state.
In Tennessee, a program called “Tennessee Promise” offers two years of free tuition at a community or technical college in the state.
Many other states are enacting promise programs, including Nevada, Indiana, Kentucky, New York and New Jersey.
Extensive scholarship programs have been created and Wyoming, Nevada, Oklahoma, Iowa, Missouri, Louisiana, Georgia, Florida and Maine.
Last year, New York rolled out the Excelsior Scholarship, which covers four years of college tuition and doesn’t require academic performance as a stipulation. The scholarship is offered to only New York State residents, and students need to enroll in 30 credits per calendar year.
Students from families making up to $125,000 per year are eligible. The post-graduation requirement is that students live and work in New York following graduation for the equivalent time they spend in the program, so if they are enrolled for four years, they need to live and work in New York for an equal amount of time afterward.
The scholarship can be applied to all schools at the City University of New York and State University of New York. However, the program is in a trial phase of three years which will complete in 2020. During that time, the program expects to enroll over 940,000 people.
