President Obama's free community college proposal has a direct ancestor in a program Tulsa Community College began in 2007. And Tulsa's free-tuition experiment is working, with the college's leaders calling it a "battle-tested" recipe for increasing degree production.
Tulsa Achieves pays for three free years of tuition or 63 free credits, which is enough for an associate degree. The scholarship is open to all high school graduates in Tulsa County, Okla. They must enroll right out of high school, maintain a 2.0 GPA, take a student success course and do 40 hours of community service each year to remain eligible.
The community college hit the ground running in 2007, enrolling 1,350 students in the program's first class.
"We nearly doubled our first-time freshmen," said Lauren Brookey, vice president for external affairs at Tulsa, which enrolls about 20,000 students.
Read more at Inside Higher Ed: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/03/05/tulsa-community-colleges-free-tuition-program-has-paid-while-inspiring-others