Did Somebody Say Tuition Free College Education?

A small college in Michigan that is planning on going tuition-free. Their hope is that by offering this incentive their graduates will be more likely to “pay it forward” after graduation. Hope College is starting a program called “Hope Forward” to their incoming 22 freshman students; they are hoping to expand this to the whole student population in the near future (www.chronicle.com).

As the name indicates, their hope is to encourage their students to invest in the college after they receive their education , as opposed to before. It would be exciting to see this program succeed - a college education should be looked at as an investment and if students are successful and land a job after graduation they should “pay it forward” to the institution that helped get them there. My thought is that this program will also put pressure on the college to ensure that students land a job after graduation, which will greatly benefit the students and the college.

In order for this program to survive the college will need to raise a substantial amount of money to fund the program. Luckily, many investors saw the benefit of this program and were more than willing to make a contribution (www.chronicle.com). The next few years will create challenges to raise the money needed to sustain the program. Hopefully, they can continue the program through the next couple of years until their first graduating class can begin to “pay it forward.”

To be considered for this program students had to have a GPA of 3.0 or higher and write an essay about an area of hopelessness to which they wanted to bring hope, this helps to decipher which students will be willing to “pay it forward” and help bring change to the world. The final step in the application process was an interview over Zoom (www.chronicle.com).

I believe that the message this program gives speaks volumes. It encourages students to “pay it forward”, which is something that society is in desperate need of. It also helps students to pursue their personal dreams and land a job that they have always wanted, as opposed to getting any job(s) that will help pay off their college debt.

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