A Second Look at Enrollment Changes after the Kalamazoo Promise

Abstract

While previous research has documented how the Kalamazoo Promise, the most prominent and generous place-based college scholarship program, increased enrollment in Kalamazoo Public Schools, this paper qualifies and quantifies the characteristics of students who were induced to enter-or stay-in the district. In particular, it analyzes the origins and destinations, socioeconomic composition, and school-level sorting behavior associated with student flows around the time of the Promise announcement. These dimensions are more subtle than changes in the volume of students or measures of their individual success, but they are equally important to understand for communities exploring the feasibility of place-based scholarships as a local economic development tool. The findings suggest considerable economic benefits not just for the school district but for the broader metropolitan area. JEL Classification Codes: I21, I25, J61, O18, R10Key Words: Kalamazoo Promise, place-based scholarship, local economic development, enrollment, migration, selection Acknowledgments:

The Effects of the Kalamazoo Promise Scholarship on College Enrollment, Persistence, and Completion

“…It also reflects the scholarships taking place on a sub-state scale and being designed to reinvigorate the local community in addition to promoting higher education. Indeed, Bartik, Eberts, and Huang (2010) and Hershbein (2013) show that the declining enrollment in KPS abruptly reversed following the introduction of the Kalamazoo Promise, and that enrollment changes were concentrated in grades eligible to receive the scholarship. Although Miller (forthcoming) finds the Promise had little effect on housing prices, the contemporaneous timing of the burst of the housing bubble complicates inference.…”

“…First, there is the possibility of differential pretrending: i.e., that outcomes between the two groups were diverging even before the Promise. Second, the Promise may have induced changes in the composition of the two groups-perhaps due to selective migration (Hershbein 2013)-that led to relatively more favorable outcomes for Promise-eligible students vis-à-vis ineligible students.…”

Migration and Housing Price Effects of Place-Based College Scholarships

“…This expected pattern of in-migration and out-migration effects is consistent with research evidence on how Promise programs increase Promise school districts' enrollment. For the Kalamazoo Promise, research shows that the Promise resulted in a one-time increase in new students entering the district, in the year just after the Promise announcement, but more persistent reductions in the rate at which students exited the district (Bartik et al 2010;Hershbein 2013).…”

Promise Scholarship Programs and Local Prosperity

“…Researchers speculate that this may be because of increased economic vitality in El Dorado, greater desire by middle-class residents to remain in the community, or an influx of new middle-class families, concluding that some combination of these factors has contributed to El Dorado's relative economic stability.Kalamazoo and El Dorado are home to two of the nation's most generous Promise programs, both awarding scholarships on a first-dollar basis. The interesting question of how program design affects school district enrollment was addressed in a comparative study of the enrollment and housing effects of 21 Promise programs.62 The authors asked whether merit-60 Hershbein (2013). 61 See Ash and Ritter (2014) on El Dorado discussion.…”