America Wakes Up From Its Dream of Free College

Classrooms full of crying students. That’s how the scene is often described. In November 2005, at Kalamazoo Central High School in Michigan, every classroom was full of teary-eyed students—jubilant, but teary-eyed.

They had good reason to be happy. The vice principal had just announced over the P.A. system that anonymous benefactors would be paying the students’ college tuition—all of the students across the entire school district, from kindergarten to high school, in perpetuity. Starting in 2006 and continuing until this day, the students have taken part in a social experiment of sorts.

The school district saw results: Its enrollments jumped, and so too did the number of teachers in the district. The district was able to build new schools for the first time since the 1970s. The offer brought change not just to Kalamazoo schools, but to the whole city. Businesses came to the area, and with them workers anxious for their children to get free tuition. These families would still have to pay room and board and other college fees on their own, but to have tuition covered surely alleviated at least some of their fears, and reduced the likelihood of these kids having to take on a lifetime burden of student debt.

It was the beginning of a wave. As the college-affordability crisis reaches a fever pitch, and students have to take out more and more loans to obtain what is becoming to be seen more as a necessary credential, some leaders have stepped in to pick up some of the slack. There are more than scattered across the country—California, for example, has 43—many