Oregon Considers Closing Free College Program

Oregon officials are considering scrapping the state’s promise program and investing the savings in need-based aid instead, arguing free college has failed to boost enrollments.

An early proposal by the Oregon Higher Education Coordinating Commission staff recommends sunsetting the decade-old Oregon Promise Grant, Oregon Public Broadcasting first reported. The program covers tuition costs for recent high school or GED graduates at the state’s 17 community colleges, after federal and state financial aid are applied. Under the proposal, the state agency would transfer funds from the promise program to the Oregon Opportunity Grant, which serves students with unmet financial need who attend eligible public or private higher ed institutions.

Oregon Promise is one of an estimated 200-plus state and local programs across the country that cover college tuition costs. And it’s the second statewide program to face threats of late; Maine lawmakers raised concerns about the sustainability of their state’s free college program but last month voted in favor of making permanent a less expensive version of it.

The Oregon proposal has yet to formally come before the full commission. If HECC approves it—likely after months of deliberation—the recommendation will go to the governor, who can decide whether to introduce a bill for consideration in the 2027 legislative session, said Kyle Thomas, HECC’s director of policy and legislative affair. Students applying for the promise program for the 2026–27 cycle won’t be affected.

“This is truly the first step in a long process,” Thomas said.

Still, the move has stirred up debate. HECC officials argue the free college program hasn’t boosted enrollment, retention or completion rates in the ways lawmakers had hoped, and its funds would be better off in a more successful program. But community college leaders are pushing back, suggesting that the free college program should be revamped, not cut altogether.

Underwhelming Outcomes

Thomas acknowledged that “free community college is a really powerful idea” and the program “does improve affordability for a slice of the community college student population.”

A 2025 report evaluating the Oregon Promise Grant found that if the program didn’t exist, a significantly higher share of students would struggle to pay for tuition and other college costs. It noted that 52 percent of low-income Oregon Promise students still can’t afford the total cost of attending community college with the grant covering tuition. But without the program, 65 percent of low-income recipients wouldn’t be able to afford the full cost of college. Nearly half of Oregon Promise recipients, 46 percent, also receive Pell Grants, federal financial aid for low-income students. (Students whose tuition is covered by Pell still get a minimum of $2,000 from the promise program for other expenses, such as books, room and board.)

But college enrollment in the state rose only slightly—two percentage points—in the first academic year of the program, 2016–17, and then growth stopped, according to the report. College-going rates dipped during the COVID-19 pandemic, and enrollment has yet to reach pre-pandemic levels; it remains lower than before the Oregon promise program began. The report also found the program didn’t close equity gaps in college-going rates or raise completion rates for high school graduates in the state.

Thomas partly attributes the program’s lackluster results to state underfunding and overly stringent eligibility requirements. Students need to enroll in college within six months of graduating high school to qualify, and they have to stay continuously enrolled at least half-time or they lose their eligibility. The program also instituted family income caps during the pandemic in response to a lean state budget, “which has made the program less predictable for students and families,” Thomas said. “The messaging around the program has become more muddled.”

He also raised concerns that 65 percent of the total program dollars go to students who don’t receive other forms of aid, including some from higher-income families. He’d rather see scant state funds go to lower-income students through a need-based program like the Oregon Opportunity Grant.

“If we were in a really highly funded environment here in Oregon, I think that we would not be as concerned about that kind of inefficiency in funding allocation,” he said. “But I don’t think we have that luxury here.”

A Loss for the Middle Class

While community college advocates acknowledge the program’s shortcomings and design flaws, they worry that cutting the promise program would siphon funds away from their students.

Oregon Promise directs about $47.3 million to community college students, but those funds will be divided among a wider range of institutions if that money is lumped into the Oregon Opportunity Grant, John Wykoff, deputy director of the Oregon Community College Association, said in a memo to his legislative team. As the Oregon Opportunity Grant currently stands, community college students receive smaller funding amounts: a maximum annual award of about $4,320, compared to about $8,352 for students attending four-year institutions.

Wykoff acknowledged that HECC could tweak the need-based state aid program to mitigate that gap, but some students would still lose out, he told Inside Higher Ed. His main concern is for middle-income students “on that financial aid margin, who may not show up on paper to have need but can’t afford college and wouldn’t otherwise go,” he said. The Oregon Promise Grant “is likely the only kind of aid they’re going to get,” and without it, some may not enroll at all.

He also emphasized that the free college program is easier for students to understand than the Oregon Opportunity Grant and federal financial aid.

“The promise is very straightforward … Your tuition is paid,” Wykoff said. With other federal and state aid, “you don’t know what you’re going to get until you’ve turned in all of those forms and gotten an answer back.”

He said he respects HECC’s efforts to direct a limited amount of funding to the neediest students, but “from our perspective, the agency takes a sincere but, we think, not quite nuanced enough approach to looking at the program.” He’d rather see the program reformed than shuttered.

Thomas acknowledged that shifting funds to the Oregon Opportunity Grant “undoubtedly reduces the amount of funding that goes directly to community college students … It’s a concern we completely understand,” he said. He added HECC could revisit the grant formula to help allay those worries.

He also understands that the promise program “remains really popular” in part because “it is one of the few sources of state assistance of any type that middle-class individuals often qualify for.”

But “the underfunding situation is so significant … that it is very difficult to serve that population and also simultaneously underserved low-income students,” he said.