Here’s how Columbia could actually send students to college for free, mayor says

A bold proposal to send Columbia’s public school graduates to college for free could work if taxpayers, developers and private donors buy in, the city’s mayor says.

Following the example of more than 200 similar free-college programs across the country, Columbia Mayor Steve Benjamin announced this week his goal to provide free higher education to every public school graduate in the city.

While the proposal is in the early and fairly undetailed stages of discussion, local education and philanthropy leaders expressed interest and optimism toward the goal of Benjamin’s “Columbia Promise.”

“It’s like a dream come true” for Richland 1 students and families, said Cheryl Harris, chairwoman of the Richland 1 school board. “That’s huge, because the biggest concern about college, next to safety, is its cost.”

What’s more, Harris said, offering free tuition to local graduates could help retain their talents locally.

“If we’re going to raise them and nurture them, why can’t Columbia benefit from its own?” she said. “Our students are going to other places and advancing other cities and states when they could be advancing their own.”

Benjamin already has started conversations with Richland 1 and Richland County government leaders about making all of the district’s students eligible for the free-college plan. Some students in other school districts that overlap with city boundaries, including Richland 2 and Lexington-Richland 5, also could be eligible, the mayor said, but those details have not yet taken shape.

Benjamin’s vision for the “Promise” program looks like this:

▪ Encourage, through incentives, a large development worth a couple hundred million dollars on a particular property or group of properties.

▪ The city, county and school district agree to set aside property tax revenues from that development. For a $200 million development, for instance, property tax revenues could be worth more than $7 million annually, Benjamin estimates. That money would exclusively go toward college scholarships for Columbia graduates.

▪ Combine that tax revenue with private donations to fund the scholarships. The mayor does not yet have a goal for the amount of private donations, but he hopes they eventually would endow the fund so it could grow with interest earnings.

▪ Provide scholarships to supplement other financial aid Columbia students receive toward their tuition. This would be a “last-option” scholarship, Benjamin said, for students to fill in the gap up to 100 percent of tuition. These would not need-based scholarships.

“This is for every child,” Benjamin said. “It’s bold, and it’s meant to be bold. ... I think it can set Columbia apart as a unique place in the American South where we’re investing in our future.”

Benjamin’s vision is modeled somewhat off of the Kalamazoo Promise, one of the first and best recognized community-based free-college programs in the country. For more than a decade, private donors have funded up to 100 percent of Kalamazoo, Mich., public school graduates’ tuition at public colleges in the state. The amount of each scholarship depends on how long a student has attended the city’s public schools.

Dozens of communities and states, including Tennessee, have followed suit over the years with similar programs with varying qualifications.

A similar free-college program could lift barriers for some Columbia students who might otherwise forgo or delay higher education, said Ronald Rhames, president of Midlands Technical College.

“I think absolutely the whole issue of cost causes many people not to even approach higher education,” said Rhames, himself a product of Richland 1 and Midlands Tech.

At Midlands Tech, a typical full-time student can expect to pay about $2,500 in tuition per semester, Rhames said. That’s about a third of what they might pay at a four-year college, he said.

Even with the comparatively lower cost of studying at a technical college, he said, “there is still a gap between financial assistance a student may receive ... and the cost of education.”

“A solid program like what’s being proposed could eliminate that gap for our students and make a huge difference,” Rhames said.

Could Columbia have a private donor base willing to help support a free-college program? It’s not yet known.

Local philanthropists have shown an appetite for supporting education as a way of enhancing the quality of life of the community, said JoAnn Turnquist, president and CEO of the Central Carolina Community Foundation, which connects donors with organizations and programs that use funding to better the community.

“Our private sector is very committed to lifting up the community,” Turnquist said. “I’m not sure if a free tuition program is a current priority, as I haven’t spoken to folks about this concept. However, the appetite to create opportunities for students to gain career skills is evident through the scholarship, internship and apprenticeship programs that are offered across our state.”

While Turnquist knows of Benjamin’s proposal, Central Carolina has not been involved in any in-depth, formal conversations about a potential “Promise” program.

Generally speaking, Turnquist said, a free-college program could benefit the community not only by defraying the cost burden of college education for local families, but it could help build up local talent resources that will attract businesses to the community, particularly if the program encourages students to attend local or state colleges.

“Talent located in a city and the vibrancy of that city bring businesses to that city,” Turnquist said. “In order to ensure we have more workers with marketable skills, we as a community have to figure out how to ensure that more students have a marketable degree.”

This story was originally published February 1, 2018 at 5:46 PM with the headline "Here’s how Columbia could actually send students to college for free, mayor says."