So simple, yet so complex
In December 2005, Kalamazoo, Michigan, launched perhaps one of the most elegantly simple economic development initiatives I've ever heard of. Anonymous donors set up a fund and promised to pay full tuition at a state college or university for every graduate of the public school system. (Well, actually 100% of tuition if you've been there since kindergarten down to 65% if you got there in 9th grade. But still, a lot.) Maintain a 2.0 when you get to college. That's pretty much it. It's called the Kalamazoo Promise. It has generated a ton of excitement. People are moving back to Kalamazoo, property values are rising, the city is building new schools for the first time in decades. And as major philanthropic investments go, well, there are more expensive ones out there certainly.
It's a great example of how investing in people can be investing in place also.
Not surprisingly, other places are trying to emulate it. This makes me wonder if the idea will remain effective if you can move to any old struggling city in order to get your college tuition paid. But I get way ahead of myself here: having a half-dozen other programs is a *long* way from that.
And besides, some of the ones doing the replicating don't quite get it. Hammond, Indiana's, for example, is just creepy. In the name of promoting homeownership (often a good goal, within reason), they're only offering scholarships to children of parents who own their homes. (I kid you not.) Not only that, if your parents own a home in Hammond and you go to private school elsewhere, you still get the scholarship. (So people can still flee the school system.) But no matter where you went, you only get it if you've maintained a 3.0 in high school. If they'd sat down and tried to figure out how to make the most regressive scholarship program possible, this is something like what they would have come up with.
On a lighter note, I leave you with this, from another community in Michigan explaining why it wants to create its own promise: "The community is becoming a magnate for families who value education and teachers who want to teach motivated students." Ah, benevolent, influential Kalamazoo, a magnate of good education. Amusingly, this may be becoming true, though I'm sure the writer meant to say magnet.