ALL Detroit high-school graduates will receive two years of tuition at a community college absolutely free, announced Mayor Mike Duggan at a press conference yesterday.
In the face of rising college education costs, the Detroit Promise program will be funded by a portion of the city’s property taxes, which will be set aside in the Detroit Scholarship Fund. Created in 2013 by the Detroit Regional Chamber, the fund has already helped send nearly 2,000 Detroit grads to community college, tuition free.
Now, that opportunity is open to all who finish high school, whether private, public or charter, so long as students spent their junior and senior years at a school in the city. They will have the option of attending any of the five community colleges in metro Detroit.
The initiative is based on the Kalamazoo Promise, which started in 2005 and allows anonymous donors to pay for tuition at state universities for that city’s public high-school graduates.
