Full Citation
Title: College Scholarships As A Tool for Community Development? Evidence From The Kalamazoo Promise
Citation Type: Miscellaneous
Publication Year: 2011
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Abstract: On November 10 2005 the Kalamazoo Public School District announced that a group of anonymous donors had given the district an unusual gift: starting with the graduating class of 2006, graduates of the district will receivescholarships worth up to four years of college tuition and mandatory fees at any public community college, college oruniversity in Michigan. These scholarships are called The Kalamazoo Promise. This paper addresses how the Promisetransformed the school district and the surrounding community. Using data from the state of Michigans Center for Educational Performance and Information and the Michigan Educational Assessment Program, I use a difference-indifferences methodology to study the how the Promise affected the number of students enrolled in the KalamazooPublic School District, the demographics of enrolled students (as measured by race and free lunch eligibility), the academic achievement of enrolled students (as measure by test scores and special education eligibility) and the levels of school violence. The Promise increased enrollment in the Kalamazoo Public School district by roughly 1,000students. The timing and pattern of the increase in enrollment provide strong evidence that this increase was driven by the announcement of the Promise. The Promise did not significantly change the demographic mix or test scoresof the students in the KPS. However, the rate of enrollment in special education programs has fallen. In the yearssince the Promise began, the Kalamazoo Public Schools have seen decreasing student violence. These findings are consistent with the possibility that existing students have increased their investments in education in light of thereduced cost of college attendance and the possibility that new entrants to the Kalamazoo Public Schools who weredrawn by the Promise differed from students in the district at the time of the announcement of the Promise. Anextensive literature documents the relationship between home prices and school quality. I explore the impact of thePromise on home prices in the Kalamazoo Public School District using nine years of data on all home sales in thecounty in which the school district is located. While the Kalamazoo Promise significantly changed several aspects ofthe Kalamazoo Public School District, I find no evidence that the Promise increased real estate values.
User Submitted?: No
Authors: Miller, Ashley
Publisher: Abt Associates
Data Collections: IPUMS USA
Topics: Education, Housing and Segregation, Migration and Immigration, Poverty and Welfare
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