Introduction

About

The rising cost of college and growing need for postsecondary education and training has generated great interest in free college tuition programs. Yet many of these programs aim to serve recent high school graduates and little is known about the programs open to adults. To fill this knowledge gap, the American Institutes for Research, under a grant funded by Walmart, conducted a scan of free college tuition program websites in spring 2021. This scan culminated in this project website, which contains an interactive map, a report, a downloadable database of programs, and a webinar that explores how free college tuition programs for adults might better leverage employers in establishing and advancing programs.

Map

Map

Source: 2020–21 Free College Tuition Programs for Adults Database prepared by AIR

PDF Report

Report


Download the executive summary
Download the full report
Database

Database


Download an Excel version of the database of programs
Download a Stata version of the database of programs
Download the codebook for the database
Webinar

Webinar



Watch the recorded webinar
Download the webinar slides
Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments

The project’s report coauthors are Alexandria Walton Radford, Katherine Hughes, Roman Ruiz, Ji Hyun Yang, and Christopher Carvajal Rivera. That said, the project report could not have been completed without the assistance of our numerous colleagues at the American Institutes for Research who contributed to the project as a whole. Robert Calderon and Montrischa Essoka provided project management support. Catherine Baker, Beth Brinly, Wendy Brors, and Stephanie Veck counseled the project team on how best to engage the workforce development community in this effort. Pierina Hernandez Luperdi, Kyra Martin, Mehek Naqvi, Bradley Salvato, and Angela Su were all instrumental in data collection. In addition, multiple staff shone as they led different aspects of the dissemination activities, including Joanne Blank (report design), Caryl Wenzel (editing), Caitlin Deal (interactive map), Anand Kumar and Meghan Rivera (project website), Emily Loney (webinar), and Sarah Rand (social media campaign).

We also would like to acknowledge the work of other organizations that helped us in compiling our database of adult-eligible free college tuition programs, as well as recognize the funders, practitioners, and researchers who offered valuable perspectives on the landscape of free college tuition programs and this particular project. Please refer to the report’s acknowledgment section, where we name these organizations and individuals.

Finally, we give a very special thanks to Shannon Rowan, Sean Murphy, and Josh Frazier-Sparks of Walmart for their thoughtful suggestions and feedback as we developed this project. We are also grateful to Walmart for its financial support, which made this work possible.

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AIR Advancing Evidence. Improving Lives. CARPE Center for Applied Research in Postsecondary Education at the American Institutes for Research