Tuesday 11 May 2021

How hateful rhetoric connects to real-world violence

How hateful rhetoric connects to real-world violence

4 tools to protect and enhance investment in early childhood development and education

Posted: 10 May 2021 01:45 PM PDT

By Emily Gustafsson-Wright, Ana Nieto, Jennifer Asman, Divya Lata, Elizabeth Lule, Claudia Vazquez, Melissa Kelly

The Annual Meeting of the Comparative International Education Society (CIES) took place virtually from April 25-May 2. Although the participants missed the Seattle coffee and beautiful environs that the in-person event would have provided, there were rich discussions held on Zoom under the umbrella of this year's theme, "social responsibility within changing contexts." Our four organizations—the Center for Universal Education at Brookings, the ECD Action Network (ECDAN), UNICEF, and World Bank—presented together on how to support countries to equitably and efficiently invest in early childhood development (ECD), including early childhood education (ECE), through various complementary resources and tools.

Strengthening public finance for ECD to deliver results at scale and to protect progress made in recent years is critical. As explained by the World Bank at the start of the session, despite the overwhelming evidence and political momentum built around ECD in the last decades, over 43 percent of children under the age of 5 are at risk of not fulfilling their full developmental potential due to risks of poverty, poor nutrition, and a lack of access to basic services and early enrichment opportunities. In low-income countries, 8 out of 10 children are missing out on ECE opportunities, and less than 2 percent of the overall education budget was allocated to the pre-primary subsector. Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic has made young children even more vulnerable as services have been disrupted, and parents and caregivers face an increased burden as they become frontline responders in the crisis of care and learning.

While multisectoral interventions for young children and parents are essential for providing comprehensive opportunities for ECD, these interventions can be difficult to plan, estimate costs, and monitor, as they cover a wide range of services, sectors, and government agencies. Understanding the financial costs and socioeconomic benefits of these services is essential to protect and promote ECD financing as countries grapple with the fiscal crisis wrought by the pandemic. The guidance documents and tools presented in our CIES session and described below demonstrate how the ECD community has worked together to provide concrete solutions to the many pressing ECD and ECE challenges (see infographic below).

Public finance for ECD

The first guidance document, the "Global Resource Guide on Public Finance for ECD," shared by UNICEF's ECD and social policy teams, aims to increase government, civil society, and other partner capacity to address financial obstacles and deliver at-scale and sustainable ECD results. It explains how to analyze and diagnose public finance issues in different country contexts, describes core actions and key analytical tools (e.g., costing estimates and public expenditure reviews) to support governmental budget decisionmaking and coordination, as well as provides case studies and examples. The guide also highlights the importance of ensuring that evidence-based efforts target key decisionmakers, including ministries of finance and planning, by generating the "right" evidence and using language that resonates with them.

Mainstreaming ECE into education system planning

Another resource, the ECE Accelerator Toolkit—developed as part of an innovative initiative between UNICEF and the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) to mainstream ECE within Education Sector Plans (ESPs)—was shared by the UNICEF education team. Officially launched in February 2021, the toolkit seeks to promote sustainable systems of quality pre-primary education, and is a globally relevant, interactive, and practical resource to help countries elevate ECE's focus in ESPs, and thereby address SDG target 4.2. The presentation focused on the two costing and financing tools from the toolkit, which are used in education sector planning and budgeting processes to advocate for domestic resource allocation:

  • Tool 2.3 features key cost indicators and drivers related to public costing and financing of ECE.
  • Tool 3.3 provides guidance on the use and development of simulation models to create and compare alternative ECE programming interventions and prioritize policy choices. Specific country examples of "need-based projections"—driven by intervention targets (Sao Tome and Principe)—and "intervention-based projections"—driven by intervention components (Lesotho)—are included.

Costing education and ECD

The Brookings team presented its work on costing ECD and education, including a summary of its soon-to-be launched, publicly accessible online cost calculator. This tool, based on the earlier Standardized ECD Costing Tool (SECT) developed in collaboration with the World Bank in 2015, allows policymakers, donors, program implementers, and researchers to enter costing data in a guided survey form that provides a range of calculations, estimates, and simulated costs for both ECD and K-12 interventions. The calculator can inform effective investment decisions such as:

  • Is the project feasible within a given budget?
  • What are the cost implications of a programmatic change, such as in dosage or scale?
  • How do the costs of intervention A compare to those of intervention B?
  • What is the cost per beneficiary of an intervention or program?
  • How are costs distributed across cost categories, resource types, and/or one time versus recurrent costs for this intervention or program?

Costs of inaction in ECD

A fourth tool, which measures the cost of inaction in ECD or the benefits foregone by not investing in children, was presented by ECDAN. This online "plug and play" tool compares costs to potential monetizable social benefits of an intervention. These benefits are measured in terms of increased individual income that one may receive over a lifetime, based on the intervention's positive impact on the human capital development of children, such as improved health or cognitive development, which have compounding effects throughout a child's life. This analysis contributes to the economic rationale for investment in ECD and can help compare different forward-looking scenarios to inform policy decisions—and can be particularly valuable to countries advocating for prioritization of ECD investments in the wake of COVID-19. It can be used to evaluate ECD interventions across different sectors, is available for use in more than 180 countries, and is currently being tested in Brazil and with UNICEF in Madagascar, and Bulgaria.

Together, these complementary guidance documents and tools—developed in a consultative process across several institutions—have enormous potential to greatly strengthen ECD policy interventions and resource allocation decisions. These efforts can greatly improve equitable access to quality ECD and education for the many children impacted today by COVID-19 and for generations to come.

To view the PowerPoint slides from the Annual CIES meeting on investing in early childhood development, click here.

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Protecting democracy and containing autocracy

Posted: 10 May 2021 01:09 PM PDT

By Michael Hais, Doug Ross, Morley Winograd

Democracy has been under increasing assault in the U.S. over the course of this century. Sixty percent of white working class Americans agreed with the statement that "because things have gotten so far off track in this country, we need a leader who is willing to break some rules if that's what it takes to set things right." Although only 40% of all Americans felt that way in 2017, almost 47% of them voted in 2020 to support a candidate for president who exhibited blatant authoritarian behavior. For the first time since the 1930's, the competition between democracy and autocracy to determine how we will be governed in the future is in doubt.

The view that this authoritarian threat can be defused by converting those who would abandon the Constitution "to get things done" through persuasion and empathy is contradicted by both social science and electoral fact. Study after study has documented that efforts to change political opinions through rational argument and the deployment of fact changes few minds and often hardens opinions instead. Nearly one hundred court rulings and the certification of the 2020 election results by all 50 states still leaves 77% of Republicans questioning the legitimacy of President Biden's election based on supposed voter fraud. If there are words, facts, or empathy that can change those views, no credible evidence to support the strategy has been presented.

A more hopeful strategy can be found in the contest between the U.S. and the Soviet Union after World War II. In his now famous "X article" in the July 1947 issue of Foreign Affairs, U.S. diplomat George Kennan publicly proposed defending democracy using a strategy of "containment." Rather than aggressively pushing to overthrow the Soviet Union or believing that the Stalinist regime could be "charmed or talked out of existence," Kennan argued that an authoritarian Soviet Union “be contained by the adroit and vigilant application of counter-force at a series of constantly shifting geographical and political points.” The foundation of his proposal was the belief that the contradictions inherent in Soviet party rule would ultimately lead to collapse of the system or at least its considerable mellowing if denied opportunities for expansion.

Employing containment rather than conversion as a strategy for preventing the development of authoritarian governance here at home offers a series of powerful advantages:

  • Those proposing autocracy over democracy remain a minority. Over sixty percent of Americans believe the 2020 presidential election was fair. Containment does not rely on changing the political opinions of millions of Americans, a proposition which ought to be pursued, but for which no credible action plan exists. Defense of democracy doesn't require converts, only holding the line.
  • In the present day, the foundation that supports a domestic containment strategy is more concrete than Kennan's speculative assertion that the Soviet Union would inevitably collapse under its own contradictions. It rests on the existing political and cultural views of the rising electoral generations of Millennials (Gen Y), born in the last two decades of the 20th century and Plurals (Gen Z), born in the first two decades of this century.

Demographics are not an "invisible hand" insuring the victory of liberal democracy over autocracy. However, on the research-based assumption that current cultural and civic generational views are usually an indicator of a generation's future outlook, the polled opinions of our two newest generations provide some long-term optimism.

We start with the view that fears of white displacement and of new cultural values that are undermining the perceived essence of "Americanism," not economics, are the major drivers of those most willing to work outside inherited constitutional rules and norms. Anxiety and anger over the coming loss of a white majority are reflected in opinions about racial diversity that vary widely by generation. Sixty-two percent of Plurals and 61% of Millennials think that increasing racial and ethnic diversity is good for America, compared to 48% of Boomers and 41% of the even older Silent generation. Plural Republicans are also much more likely than their older GOP counterparts to agree with this statement.

Similar generational gaps exist on the issue of whether immigrants are a benefit or burden to the country with 75% of Millennials saying they are a benefit compared to 52% of Boomers and 44% of Silents. A majority (53%) of both younger generations believe that "people of different races marrying each other" is a good thing as opposed to 30% of Boomers and 20% of Silents—further evidence that the ascending electorate is hardly afraid of the pollution of white culture and blood by "others."

While it is not always true that as the generational "twig is bent, the tree's inclined", the attitudes towards race of America's two youngest generations offer hope that time may be on our side in pursuing a containment strategy.

A containment action agenda

A domestic containment strategy offers a number of actions that those who want to defend democracy can take now, without having to wait for demographics to defeat domestic authoritarianism.

On the defensive front:

  1. While respecting everyone's constitutional rights, the minority must not be allowed to overrule the expressed will of the majority. Securing majority governance and blocking authoritarian minorities from taking federal power requires minimizing gerrymandering; eliminating voter suppression; reforming, if not eliminating, the Senate's filibuster rule; and making campaign financing as transparent as possible.
  1. Social media algorithms need to be reshaped or at least accompanied by "middleware" as part of reforms to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996. This will help social media consumers assess the reliability of the source of what they are seeing and encourage exposure to differing points of view. Further experiments with independent governance structures for determining the acceptability of political content on social media platforms, similar to the one Facebook has deployed, should also be encouraged.
  2. A clear line must be drawn between violence and peaceful protests. Law enforcement must deal vigorously and visibly with the threat of violence from that element of the authoritarian minority that is prepared to use force to pursue its political objectives. As profiles of some of those charged with insurrection on January 6 reveal, nearly ninety percent were not tied to extremist groups and were difficult to distinguish from your next-door neighbor. Prosecution and imprisonment of those who would turn to violence, whether a Proud Boy or the pharmacist down the street will be critical to deterring attempts at political change outside the rules of democratic governance.

Containment also requires sustained and continuous push back against authoritarian views, just as Kennan argued in his memo on containing communism. While waiting for more democratically-inclined generations to seize the electoral stage:

  1. Lies and distortions of reality must be responded to vigorously and persistently. The election was not stolen, immigration advocates are not motivated by white replacement, whites are not subject to more discrimination than blacks. All those in the public eye, including commentators as well as elected officials, must be held to account whenever they spread such falsehoods.
  2. Institutions as effective as the National Democratic Institute has been in spreading the idea of democracy worldwide must be created to increase young Americans faith in democracy here at home. While most young people have no sympathy for authoritarian views, they are far from convinced that constitutional democracy is the best form of governance to make the societal changes they seek based on what they have experienced in their lifetime. Above all we must demonstrate democracy works, since gridlocked governing will undermine faith in our democratic system no matter what else we do.

Containment offers a realistic strategy for preventing an authoritarian minority from taking power electorally or extralegally. It buys time until those generations with stronger ties to democratic values assume majority power and protects our democracy until they do. Finally, it allows the champions of democracy—conservative and liberal, Democrat and Republican–to act forcefully together without depending on changing the views of others to prevail. That the strategy worked to win the Cold War is no guarantee that it will work in our domestic struggle with authoritarianism. But it offers the most realistic option before us for winning this war.

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Barriers to achieving US climate goals are more political than technical

Posted: 10 May 2021 07:47 AM PDT

By Samantha Gross

On Earth Day, April 22, President Joe Biden hosted a global summit on climate change to emphasize that the United States is back in the game on climate policy and to encourage greater climate ambition among other countries. Just over 100 days into his administration, Biden has largely put his cards on the table in terms of his climate goals and his plans to reach them. The big question is whether he will be able to overcome stiff political challenges on one of his core issues.

The Biden climate commitment

A little background on the Paris Agreement within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is helpful here. It has a "bring your own goals" structure. Each member country makes a pledge of emissions reductions that it will deliver, called a nationally determined contribution (NDC). The sum of these pledges is the "meat" of the agreement. Pledges submitted in advance of the 2015 agreement were not sufficient to achieve its overall goal — limiting global average temperature rise to less than 2°C, ideally to less than 1.5°C. However, the agreement requires NDC updates every five years with the idea that they will become more ambitious over time, driven by technology improvements and cost reductions, along with peer pressure. Those updated, ideally more ambitious, NDCs are due before the COP26 conference in early November this year.

President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the Paris Agreement, but Biden rejoined the agreement on his first day in office. Since Biden's election and inauguration, the new U.S. NDC has been a hot topic of discussion among climate experts and concerned citizens worldwide. And it is finally here, issued on April 21 in advance of the Earth Day Climate Summit. Announcing the NDC provided the Biden administration with an opportunity to demonstrate its commitment to climate action, to domestic voters and the wider world.

In the months since the election, environmentalists have generally agreed that the U.S. NDC needed to be at least a 50% reduction in emissions by 2030 (from a base year of 2005, the peak year for U.S. greenhouse gas emissions). They got their wish — the NDC pledges 50% to 52% reductions from 2005, which totals out to reductions of 39% to 45% from 2020 emissions. But the question I've been asking myself is, how? Nine years is a short time for such a profound transformation.

The NDC itself doesn't have a lot to say about the policies that will be used to achieve reductions, instead describing the sectors with significant emissions and potential ways of abating them. This is normal — the European Union submitted its own NDC in December 2020, but the implementation plan is still under consideration and expected to be issued in June. (The U.S. NDC is less ambitious than the EU's, which promises similar percent emissions reductions, but from the smaller baseline of 1990.)

Several studies, including from the University of Maryland Center for Global Sustainability, the Environmental Defense Fund, and the Asia Policy Institute and Climate Analytics, describe how the U.S. could achieve the level of reductions pledged in the NDC. The plans describe different combinations of policy mechanisms, but demonstrate that the pledged reduction is achievable — albeit very challenging.

Unlike in the European Union, a nationwide price on carbon is off the table for now. A carbon price, through a tax or a cap and trade program, would require legislation from Congress. And such legislation has no chance of passing the current Congress. Without a price on carbon, sector-specific policies must carry the burden of reducing emissions.

Sectoral emissions reductions

For the most part, the Biden administration has already proposed the programs it plans to use to achieve the emissions reductions pledged in the U.S. NDC. The American Jobs Plan that the White House issued on March 31 is the closest thing to a "climate bill" we're likely to see before the 2022 midterm elections. It contains a number of elements that would contribute to significant emissions reductions. Additional reductions are likely to come from programs that the administration can implement on its own, without Congress.

The electricity sector is the second largest source of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, constituting 25%, and the largest area of emissions reductions in every analysis I've seen. President Biden set a goal of a carbon-free electricity system by 2035 and the American Jobs Plan sets a path toward that goal with a clean electricity standard, tax credits for zero-carbon electricity and power storage, and investment in the transmission capacity needed to modernize and reshape the U.S. electricity grid.

The transportation sector is the largest source of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions at 29%, but is more difficult to decarbonize than electricity. Nonetheless, significant reductions from transportation are needed in any plan to achieve the U.S. NDC. Policy focuses on vehicle electrification, which will steadily reduce emissions as the electricity supply decarbonizes. Light vehicles are the easiest type to electrify, and the American Jobs Plan focuses on programs to overcome the chicken-and-egg challenge of electric vehicle adoption — consumers won't buy vehicles without more charging stations, but building charging infrastructure isn't profitable until there are more electric vehicles on the road. The American Jobs Plan proposes supporting the construction of 500,000 charging stations, making electric vehicles more affordable through rebates and tax incentives, and purchasing electric vehicles for the federal fleet. Reduction in vehicle miles traveled through investments in transit and cycling infrastructure are also included. In addition to policies included in the American Jobs Plan, the Biden administration has also promised to deliver stronger vehicle fuel economy standards by the end of July 2021. The administration has the authority to take this step without Congress, under existing law.

Studies demonstrating how the United States could reduce emissions rely on a variety of other programs for the remaining emissions reductions (around one-quarter of the total) still needed after electricity and transport. Greenhouse gases other than carbon dioxide are 20% of U.S. emissions (on a carbon-dioxide equivalent basis, since these gases tend to be much more potent in their warming potential). Congress is providing help here, as the Senate has already voted to use the Congressional Review Act to reinstate Obama-era regulations on methane emissions, and the House is likely to follow. The Environmental Protection Agency has also announced a rule sharply cutting emissions of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), potent greenhouse gases used as refrigerants. Congress already agreed to these cuts at the end of 2020. The American Jobs Plan describes programs to retrofit buildings for energy efficiency, research clean industrial processes, and increase natural carbon sinks like forests.

The legislation challenge

Although the administration has a plan to sharply cut greenhouse gas emissions, success is still far from certain. Cuts in methane and HFCs already approved by Congress have broad support in the regulated industries. Increasing vehicle efficiency standards also has a relatively clear path to implementation. But the American Jobs Plan is already facing Republican opposition, even before it has been written into a bill, part of Republicans' larger intransigence on climate. Most of the provisions involve tax credits or government spending, the kind of actions that can be passed in the Senate through budget reconciliation with 50 votes plus Vice President Kamala Harris breaking a tie. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm stated that she believes a clean electricity standard could also be passed through reconciliation. However, reconciliation would require all 50 Democratic senators to stick together — and Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia has already said that he does not support passing legislation in this way — or for at least one Senate Republican to cross the aisle.

President Biden has come a long way in a short time in formulating his climate goals and policy. Studies suggest the goals are very ambitious, but potentially achievable and that the most important obstacles are political. Congressional Republicans might be able to find something to like in supporting popular technologies, like clean energy or electric vehicles, but so far, that's not happening.

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Republicans in Congress are out of step with the American public on climate

Posted: 10 May 2021 07:45 AM PDT

By Samantha Gross

A majority of Americans understand that climate change is a problem. A recent poll found that about six in 10 adults in the United States say the effects of global warming are already happening and a slightly greater proportion believe human activities are to blame for the Earth's rise in temperature. Another study found that 65% of Americans believe that climate change is an emergency.

Americans' concern about climate translates into approval for action: 83% favor tax breaks for utilities that develop renewable power and 62% favor taxing companies for their greenhouse gas emissions. Such opinions are not just held among Democratic voters. A poll just before the 2020 election showed more than three-quarters of Republican voters favor government action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

It's not just the American people that are concerned about the climate and favor action. The American Petroleum Institute (API), a trade association that represents America's oil and gas industry, announced in March 2021 a slate of actions that it favors to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, including a price on carbon. Several large European oil and gas companies have set goals of achieving net-zero emissions by 2050. U.S.-based companies generally haven't taken this step, but several have come out in favor of a price on carbon emissions.

Some skeptics believe that oil company support for carbon policy is cynical, an attempt to prevent even more onerous regulation or a ploy to protect investments in natural gas or carbon capture. But even if the shift is tinged with cynicism, it still provides an opening for conversation and policymaking.

The U.S. financial industry is on board as well. The Climate Finance Working Group is made up of several trade associations for banks and financial institutions. In February 2021, the group issued a list of policy principals that would encourage financing for a low-carbon transition, including science-based policy in alignment with the Paris Agreement, long-term policy signals to foster innovation, and a price on carbon.

Living and working in Germany for the past few months, I am frequently asked why U.S. greenhouse gas policy is behind Europe, when the United States will establish a price on carbon, and similar questions. The answer to those questions is Congress, where Republicans stand steadfast against serious legislation to deal with climate.

Many Republicans legislators still reject the science of climate change, a position not held by other mainstream parties in democratic countries, but rising among far-right parties in Europe. Their positions have not kept up with their constituents, or even some business groups with which they are typically aligned. After the API made its announcement, Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming, the ranking Republican on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, issued a statement saying, "Proposals that impose a cost on carbon will hurt American families." In April, Representative Scott Perry of Pennsylvania announced at a hearing of a subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee that he planned to introduce a bill to withdraw the United States from the United Nations Framework Commission on Climate Change. He introduced his bill, which has no chance of passing, on Earth Day.

How did we get here? A total unwillingness to cooperate with Democrats is part of the problem. The polarized atmosphere in Washington is such that it is difficult for a Republican to support anything proposed by the Biden administration, lest they be demonized by right-wing media and the party's activist base. A lack of honesty exacerbates this problem. Just in the last few days there was a flareup on the political right that President Joe Biden's climate plan intended to severely limit Americans' meat consumption. His plan said no such thing, but as the saying goes, a lie can travel around the world while the truth is lacing up its boots.

The climate policies that Biden has proposed so far are a mix of executive action and proposals for Congress to fund climate-friendly investments. His American Jobs Plan includes encouragement for electric vehicle purchases and charging station construction, a clean electricity standard and tax credits for clean electricity development, and support for low-carbon industrial processes. He's more focused on carrots than sticks, in part because carrots are easier to get through a skeptical Congress. Yet those policies are condemned by Republicans as "socialism." "Our best future won't come from Washington schemes or socialist dreams," said Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina in response to President Biden's first address to a joint session of Congress, on April 28.

The situation of one political party out of step with a majority of the American people seems like an unsteady state, a disequilibrium that cannot hold. As an American concerned about climate and looking toward a low-carbon future, I wish that were so. But the Republican Party is sticking together in opposition. Although 57% of Republican voters support the American Jobs Plan, Republicans in Congress are saying no. The anti-majoritarian structure of the Senate gives the minority power to block legislation and require 60 votes for passage. Democrats can take advantage of their narrow control of the Senate to pass support for green investments through the budget reconciliation process, and perhaps afterward point out the popularity of the legislation among average Republicans. But in today's tribal political environment, will it matter? Ultimately, hope for change among Congressional Republicans lies with voters, who say they care about climate, but haven't made it a central issue determining their vote. Unless and until that changes, I fear that U.S. climate gridlock will continue.

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Is free college a good idea? Increasingly, evidence says yes

Posted: 10 May 2021 06:36 AM PDT

By Douglas N. Harris

In just a few short years, the idea of free college has moved from a radical idea to mainstream Democratic thinking. President Biden made free college one of his core campaign planks, and one that the first lady has been promoting for years. In his recent address to Congress, the president also signaled that he is ready for legislative action on a scaled-back version of the idea as part of his American Families Plan.

Two weeks ago, the nonprofit College Promise (CP)—led by Martha Kanter, who served as President Obama's undersecretary for education—also released a proposal that will influence the free college debate. (Full disclosure: I previously advised the Biden campaign and presently advise CP, but have received no compensation for these efforts.)

In today's polarized environment, the free college idea stands out for its bipartisan support. A majority of self-identified Republicans has supported the notion of free college in some polls. In fact, one of the first such statewide programs was put in place by Bill Haslam, the former Republican governor of Tennessee. While this could go the way of Obamacare, which faced strong GOP congressional opposition despite the law's origins with Republican Mitt Romney, free college seems different. Biden's latest plan only applies to community colleges, which focus on career and vocational education of the sort Republicans support, as opposed to universities, which many Republicans view as hostile battlegrounds in a culture war.

But I am less interested in the politics than the evidence of effectiveness. I have studied college access for many years and run two randomized control trials of financial aid, which produced some of the first causal evidence on free college in Milwaukee. Two years ago, Brookings released the first installment of the Milwaukee work, which I carried out with a team of researchers. Since then, we have collected more data and learned more about how students responded over time. Below, I summarize our just-released study (co-authored with Jonathan Mills), compare our results to other financial aid programs, and then discuss implications for the Biden and CP proposals. Consequently, I conclude that the evidence increasingly favors free college and "open access aid" more generally.

What Did We Learn in Milwaukee?

I developed The Degree Project (TDP) in 2009 as a demonstration program in partnership between the nonprofit Ascendium (then known as the Great Lakes Higher Education Corporation and Affiliates) and Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS). TDP offered all first-time 9th graders in half of MPS high schools $12,000 for college as "last-dollar" aid. Students could use the funds for college if they graduated from high school on time with a GPA of 2.5 and a class attendance rate of 90%. Also, as is the norm with free college programs, students had to fill out the FAFSA and have at least one dollar of unmet need. The aid could be used to attend any of the 66 public, in-state, two- or four-year colleges in Wisconsin. Ascendium provided up to $31 million to fund the grant and, as the main program administrator, sent regular letters to remind students about the program and its requirements. The organization also worked with school counselors to support students becoming eligible for the funds and preparing for college.

TDP was announced to students in the fall of 2011. Using anonymized data, we then tracked students' high school, college, and life outcomes for eight years, and we recently received data extending through when students were roughly 22 years old. As a rare randomized trial, we could estimate the effects by comparing the control and treatment group outcomes. Here is what we found:

  • For students who met the performance requirements, the program increased graduation from two-year colleges by 3 percentage points. This might seem small, but the denominator here is comprised of low-income 9th graders. Half of the control group did not even graduate from high school, let alone college. The effect amounts to a 25% increase in two-year degrees.
  • The framing and design of the program as free two-year college changed student decisions in ways consistent with what free college advocates suggest. The $12,000 maximum award amount was selected because it was sufficient to cover tuition and fees for a two-year college degree. The fact that TDP made two-year college free, but only reduced the cost of four-year college, was clearly communicated to students. This appears to explain one of our main results: Student enrollments shifted from four-year to two-year colleges. This is noteworthy given that students could use the funds at either two- or four-year colleges. In fact, students likely would have been able to use more of the $12,000 if they had shifted to four-year colleges. The only plausible reason for shifting to two-year colleges is that they were really attracted to the idea of free college.
  • The "early commitment" nature of the program had some modest positive effects on some high school outcomes. Students learned about TDP in their 9th grade year, giving them time to change their high school behaviors and college plans. Although it did not improve high school academic achievement, we find that TDP increased college expectations and the steps students took to prepare for college. TDP recipients also reported working harder because of the program (even though this did not show up in the academic measures). This highlights the fact that free college might also help address not only college-going rates, but the long-term stagnancy in high school outcomes.
  • The merit requirements undermined the program's effectiveness. Though the 2.5 GPA and 90% attendance and other requirements were arguably modest, only 21% of eligible students ended up meeting them. So, they ended up excluding many students. We also tested the two main ways that the merit requirements could have been helpful: (a) merit requirements might provide incentives for students to work hard during high school and better prepare for college, and (b) merit requirements might target aid to students who respond to it most. We find no evidence of either benefit. While students did work harder (see point [3] above), this appears to be due to other elements of the program, not the merit requirements.

Overall, these results suggest that aid is most effective when it is "open access"—that is, aid with early commitment and free college framing, but no merit requirements.

What about the evidence beyond Milwaukee?

Our study also reviews other research on financial aid, including federal aid, state merit aid programs, and the newer "promise scholarship" programs that mimic free college. Our study is not alone in finding that financial aid improves student outcomes. In fact, the vast majority of the most rigorous studies find positive effects on college attendance and college graduation. Given the strong average benefits of college, we can expect follow-up studies to show effects on employment earnings, voting, and other outcomes.

What about the costs? Open access aid is more expensive to be sure. More students receive aid and the aid levels per students are larger than traditional financial aid. Is it worth it? Our analysis suggests it is. We carried out new cost-benefit analyses of multiple programs, including TDP, but also other actively studied programs in: Kalamazoo, Michigan; Knox County, Tennessee; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and one statewide program in Nebraska. We also used estimates of the average effects of aid taken from prior literature reviews. All of these programs pass a cost-benefit test. That is, the effects on college outcomes, and the effects of college outcomes on future earnings, is much larger than the cost to the government and society as a whole. Moreover, it appears that benefits-per-dollar-of-cost are at least as high with open access aid as with more restricted programs. This means that open access aid provides greater total benefits to the community as a whole.

Back to the Free College Proposals

What do these results mean for President Biden's and CP's proposals? The table below focuses on the first two and provides a side-by-side comparison. The main difference is the level of detail. This reflects that the CP plan was designed to align with, and flesh out, the Biden campaign proposal. Perhaps the only substantive difference is that the CP proposal (and the Milwaukee program) includes private colleges. The Biden campaign documents exclude private colleges, though the American Families Plan just says "free community college," signaling alignment with the CP plan. Both proposals are clearly in the category of open access aid.

Biden Campaign Proposal College Promise
Student eligibility

· 2y college: No income requirements

· 4y college: Family AGI < $125,000

 

· 2y college: No income requirements

· 4y college: Family AGI < $125,000

· Complete FAFSA

· Part-time or full-time

· Work requirements optional

· State requirements on students "kept to a minimum"
College eligibility · Public only

· Public and private

· Title IV eligible

· Meet accountability requirements based on College Scorecard
State-Federal Contributions · 67% of costs from the federal government

· Public colleges: Federal govt contributes 75% of partnership funds; 25% from states

· Private colleges: Partnership covers up to 50% of the cost per credit (capped at state avg cost per credit in public colleges); institutions cover remainder
Other · First-dollar (covers more than tuition and fees for some very-low-income students)

There are numerous similarities between these provisions and the Milwaukee program that my team and I studied. All three programs make two-year college free (or nearly so) for all students without income requirements and through early commitment of aid. All three require the FAFSA and high school graduation. Importantly, unlike both the Biden and CP proposals, the Milwaukee program had merit requirements, which undermined its success. This is partly why our evidence is so relevant to the current debate.

Some might wonder why the president has scaled back the proposal to just free community college. This reflects that the idea of free college—even the "scaled back" version—is such a marked departure from past policy, especially at the federal level. Free community college alone would still be arguably the largest shift in federal higher education policy in the past half-century.

Caveats and Concluding Thoughts

We cannot make policy from evidence alone, but it can and should play a key role. Sometimes, policy ideas have such limited evidence of effectiveness that it is difficult to make any plausible case for a large-scale, national program. In other cases, there is enough promise for pilot studies and competitive grants to establish efficacy. With free college, we seem to be well beyond that point. In addition to decades of results on general financial aid programs, we have a growing number of studies on state and local programs that all show positive evidence—the "laboratory of democracy" at work. The idea of a large, federal free-college program therefore has more and more credibility.

A decade ago, it was not at all obvious that this is what the evidence would show. There was really no evidence on free college programs when we started this project back in 2009. Also, there were good reasons to expect that such a large increase in aid would suffer from "diminishing returns"—the idea that the next dollar is less effective than the previous one. This could have made free college more costly than the benefits could justify. Now, we know better.

I do still worry a bit about other factors and challenges. For example, the above analyses can only capture the immediate effects of financial aid, yet a federal free college program is such a marked departure in policy that it could alter political and market forces operating on higher education in unpredictable ways, perhaps even lowering college spending and quality. Also, if the proposal remains focused on community colleges, then this will shift students out of four-year colleges and into colleges that currently have very low completion rates. There are also other ways to increase college affordability and access that do not require free college (e.g., increased Pell Grants and income-based loan repayment), some of which target funds more narrowly to the most disadvantaged students. And there are many details to be worked out as the president's allies in Congress try to generate sufficient support without (a) sacrificing core principles, or (b) creating new problems that can arise when grafting new federal programs on to widely varying state contexts.

Still, it is not often that an idea comes around that addresses a widely acknowledged problem and has both research support and a fair degree of bipartisan political support. The stars seem aligned to make some form of national free college a reality. The more evidence we see, the more that would seem to be a step forward.

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