Talia Thibodeau faced an uncertain future as she prepared to graduate from Cranston High School West last June.
Thibodeau, a standout basketball player, wanted to attend college but worried about how she and her family would pay for it. It was a meeting with the women’s basketball coach at the Community College of Rhode Island that put her on a path to enrollment last fall.
Doug Haynes advised her to apply for the Rhode Island Promise Scholarship program, which offers graduating high school seniors the opportunity to earn an associate degree from CCRI tuition-free if they enroll full time, maintain a 2.5 GPA and graduate in two years.
Now she is starting her second semester at CCRI, working toward a degree in communications without being saddled with debt.
“I am at such an advantage,” said Thibodeau, who noted that she is able to work while attending school. “It’s one of the benefits of attending CCRI. I’m excited about my future.”
Since the program was first enacted in 2017, R.I. Promise has provided a pathway to a college education for students such as Thibodeau who might not have the financial means to finance their education. Yet, questions remain about how long that path will stay open.
In December, Rhode Island lawmakers approved a $12.7 billion state budget for the current fiscal year that appropriated $7.2 million for R.I. Promise. That extends the program until spring 2023, allowing high school seniors who graduate in June to participate for two years, starting next fall.
Now General Assembly leaders are looking to make R.I. Promise permanent, even though a projected state budget shortfall of $513.7 million next fiscal year will have lawmakers looking for places to trim spending during this year’s budget process. The annual cost of the program is about $7 million.
‘I think about how lucky I am to have this opportunity.’
TALIA THIBODEAU, Community College of Rhode Island student
House Speaker K. Joseph Skeharchi and Senate President Dominick J. Ruggerio introduced joint legislation on Jan. 29 that would remove the “sunset” provision that would have closed the tuition-free program to new participants after the fall of 2021.
“The best investment we can make to help individuals achieve their goals is to give them the access to a college education, which is the pathway to a brighter future,” said Shekarchi, D-Warwick.
Ruggerio, D-North Providence, said the R.I. Promise has proved to be effective in improving access to higher education for families who would otherwise struggle to pay tuition bills. “Removing barriers to higher education … makes our workforce more attractive to employers and strengthens our economy,” he said.
Gov. Gina M. Raimondo initially championed the R.I. Promise program in 2017 and made a failed attempt in 2019 to expand it to juniors and seniors at Rhode Island College. Lawmakers balked at the additional $5.3 million cost.
As Raimondo steps aside as governor to become U.S. commerce secretary, the General Assembly leadership has thrown its support behind R.I. Promise.
R.I. Promise also had the backing of incoming Gov. Daniel J. McKee, who said last month that the scholarship program at the community college “makes a lot of sense.”
Even before the announcement by Shekarchi and Ruggerio, CCRI President Meghan L. Hughes was optimistic about the future of R.I. Promise.
“We have spent four years engaged in conversation with our state’s legislators about the importance of this program to their constituents and to the state,” Hughes said last month.
Hughes and other program supporters have pointed to improved metrics in CCRI’s enrollment and graduation rates as evidence of the program’s success.
While R.I. Promise requires recipients to graduate within two years, CCRI officials say it has had a ripple effect on the school’s three-year graduation rate, a standard performance metric for community colleges. CCRI’s three-year rate has doubled from 15% to 30% since R.I. Promise launched in 2017, according to Sara Enright, CCRI vice president for student affairs and chief outcomes officer. The national average among community colleges is 25%, Enright said.
Enright said CCRI also has doubled enrollment among students “coming straight out of high school.” In the fall of 2017, enrollment was 1,584 for students who had graduated high school the previous spring. By fall 2019, the number had climbed to 2,599. School officials blame the COVID-19 pandemic for the enrollment of newly graduated high schoolers dipping to 2,271 last fall.
Not counting last fall, “there has been substantial growth in first-time, full-time straight-out-of-high-school Rhode Islanders,” said Enright.
For Hughes, that’s proof that R.I. Promise should be permanent.
“One of the things that I am proudest about with this program is the kind of dramatic performance improvement that Promise has catalyzed at the college,” she said. “You will look in vain to find an example of another community college that has seen this kind of dramatic improvement.”
For Thibodeau, she said she hopes that, despite the state’s financial woes, lawmakers will be sympathetic to aspiring college students when deciding the future of the program.
“I think it would put a lot of people at a disadvantage if the program were to end,” said Thibodeau. “It would mean a lot of people would not be able to attend college. I think about how lucky I am to have this opportunity.”
Cassius Shuman is a PBN staff writer. Email him at Shuman@PBN.com.
