U Penn Launches College Promise Online Database

College Promise programs, or place-based scholarship programs that provide free college tuition for specific institutions, have expanded over the last few years. To help navigate these resources, the University of Pennsylvania has launched an online database intended to provide policymakers, researchers and journalists with information on the 150 College Promise programs across 37 states.

The searchable catalog features an interactive map that displays program locations. Users can search by financial award, program services, program status and other specifications.

The database was developed by the Alliance for Higher Education and Democracy (PennAHEAD) at the university’s Graduate School of Education — with financial support from Civic Nation, a nonprofit that leads the College Promise Campaign, a national movement to make two years of community college tuition-free for all students.

PennAHEAD has also released its first report on College Promise programs across the United States, which “sheds light on how promise programs should be structured to promote college enrollment and attainment for students from underserved groups and identifies productive directions for future research,” according to the report.

“We hope communities and states can use this data to inform decisions about designing and structuring College Promise programs,” said Laura Perna, executive director of PennAHEAD, in a prepared statement. Perna unveiled the program at the PromiseNet 2016 conference in Washington, D.C. last week, where attendees discussed how to develop College Promise programs to boost college access across the U.S.

Further information is available on the database site.

About the Author

Sri Ravipati is Web producer for THE Journal and Campus Technology. She can be reached at sravipati@1105media.com.

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