Michelle Miller-Adams is a senior researcher at the Upjohn Institute and professor emeritus of political science at Grand Valley State University.
Reasonable people can argue over whether the $9.5 million projected cost of a program that has sent thousands of students to college is a worthwhile investment of philanthropic and public dollars.
We think it is.
But when arguing these broader questions, it is essential to understand the facts.
VladimirKogan, an Ohio State political science professor and senior research fellow at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, mischaracterized our research about the Columbus Promise, the program that allows Columbus City Schools graduates a chance to attend community college tuition-free for three years, in a Sept.
20 guest column.
We would like to set the record straight.
First, a note on who we are: The Upjohn Institute is a nonpartisan research organization with a 20-year track record of evaluating tuition-free programs. We retain complete control over our evaluations and report results as we find them, regardless of whether they align with a sponsor's hopes.
The goal of the Columbus Promise program is to increase college enrollment, providing students with educational opportunities they might not otherwise have. Some students will graduate from Columbus State Community College or transfer to a four-year institution.
Others, we know, will not complete their degrees but may still benefit from earning credentials or receiving education and support through the program.
The Columbus Promise is still in its early years, and our report assesses three-year outcomes only for its first cohort of students. But this early research suggests the program is working as intended: The Columbus Promise has dramatically increased enrollment while also leading to a modest rise in the number of students earning degrees and other credentials.
What VladimirKogan got very wrong about Columbus Promise
In his column, Kogan makes clear he’s working from a different set of premises about what counts as success.
He assumes the program is worthwhile only if it immediately generates a large increase in degrees completed. He also assumes that community college is inferior to four-year institutions for all students, in all cases. In arguing that our findings demonstrate the program’s weaknesses, Kogan also misrepresents our research.
Conflating two unrelated sets of data, Kogan points to our analysis that suggests the Columbus Promise may have induced some students who would have attended a four-year institution to instead attend Columbus State.
These results are inconclusive (and hence located at the back of our 57-page report) because we don’t have sufficient high-quality data to test this assumption – and neither does anyone else. Still, research into similar tuition-free programs shows that very few students who would otherwise be in a four-year institution are diverted to tuition-free community college programs.
Kogan goes further to argue that these findings suggest the program is harming students by requiring them to go to a community college instead of a four-year institution.
Essentially, he assumes that every student who goes to CSCC to get an associate degree would have been better served by attending a university where they undoubtedly would earn a bachelor’s degree. There’s no evidence to support this argument.
In fact, nationally, only about 50% of students from low-income neighborhoods, such as those served by the Columbus Promise, complete their degrees at four-year institutions.
Kogan neglects another positive outcome of the Columbus Promise: Beyond the group of students who earned associate degrees, another similarly sized group earned other types of credentials, usually certificates in high-demand fields. These students are ready to enter the workforce at higher salaries and with better job prospects than they would have without the program.
Other students will transfer to four-year institutions, prepared for success in that setting thanks to their community college experience.
Kogan clearly believes that going to a four-year institution is a better choice than attending a community college, and this, of course, is true for some students.
But what matters most for postsecondary success is students finding the institution that best fits their skills, interests and career goals. For many students in Columbus, this will be Columbus State. Tailored academic support, smaller class sizes, proximity to home and access to holistic resources help set these students up for success, whether they are entering the workforce or continuing their education.
With time, we’ll have a better understanding of the Columbus Promise’s long-term effects. For now, we can say with certainty: By creating a tuition-free pathway to higher education and providing needed supports, the Columbus Promise is bringing more students onto the pathway that may lead to a college degree.
Michelle Miller-Adams is a senior researcher at the Upjohn Institute and professor emeritus of political science at Grand Valley State University. She has studied tuition-free college programs for more than 20 years and led the four-person research team that evaluated the Columbus Promise’s three-year pilot.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: OSU prof distorted our data on Columbus Promise. We must defend the truth | Opinion
