Free college a promise within the budget of many cities

My oldest daughter begins ninth grade this month, which means I’ve entered the parental demographic officially known as the “Sweet mother of mercy, how does anyone afford to pay for their kids’ college?” segment.

Some of my parent-friends will only join this demographic when their own kid enters 12th grade. But I’m forward-thinking about money, so I expect to breathe deeply into this paper bag here, continuously, for the next four years.

Against what seems like unrelenting bad news about the rising cost of college education comes a new trend from cities and counties with a seemingly radical, yet actually practical, idea: Let’s make community college — an associate degree or the first two years toward a bachelor’s degree — free.

In Texas, Dallas County Community College District first began a “Promise” program a few years ago for low- and mediumincome families. The promise is that families can access “last dollar” funding to make college affordable or even free. That means that after federal and state tuition grants for qualifying families, the district will make up any difference. Two years of college in Dallas is affordable and free.

Dallas enrolled its first cohort in fall 2018. Eric Ban, the managing director of Dallas Promise, reports a 35 percent uptick in the district’s enrollment following the rollout, a higher retention rate from one semester to the next and a 6 percent increase in enrollment by students from the highest-poverty high schools in Dallas County.

Free community college is not a small experiment happening in a few cities but a nationwide trend. Ban says his program is working with other major cities