The College Bound Scholarship Program: WA State Policy Analysis

Brian L. Johnson

Western Washington University

Context: Early Commitment Aid Programs

In the last three decades, many nations, states, and private organizations
have increased their efforts to make college education affordable for students
coming from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. One concrete form that this
has taken is the early conditional promise of funding: if you commit to attend
college, I/we will help you to pay for it. Several states in the United States have
undertaken such programscalled early commitment aid programswith an eye
toward raising their relative educational achievement and economic productivity. In
Washington State, this impetus has resulted in the College Bound Scholarship
program, signed into state policy and funded in 2007.
Early conditional aid programs have as a goal to motivate junior high and
high school students to be thinking ahead of time for college planning. While
relatively simple in concept, they aim to have a positive broad and multi-faceted
impact in preparing students for college not only financially, but also academically
and socially (Kelchen & Goldrick-Rab, 2015, p. 201). The state legislators commit
funding; students commit to keep decent grades; and involving parents, teachers,
and students in the process helps to reinforce the whole surrounding network of
social expectations. Because such programs require a commitment from the
students and consent from the parents, all parties begin thinking in terms of pursuit
of higher education as a realistic goal early on: for some, at least, it may help to
bring about a change of mindset. As such, these kinds of early commitment plans
embody much more of a holistic and preventative (rather than curative or
reactive) approach (Schwartz, 2008, p. 117) to college preparation than more

traditional forms of financial aid for which students apply shortly before their college
attendance.

Origins: The College Bound Scholarship Program

The origins of the College Bound program lie in an evolving
educational/financial partnership stream over several decades. Washington State
was not the first to pioneer such a program; to some degree, WA legislators followed
the lead of previous programs in other states (though admittedly still on the early
adopter side of the curve). These, in turn, were following the lead of several
smaller private and community-based initiatives, particularly the formative I Have
a Dream initiative that Eugene Lang began in the Harlem section of New York City
in 1981, which since expanded to many other cities. Lang was a wealthy
businessperson who donated large sums of money to educational endeavors. In
1990, Indiana started the first state-based early-commitment program, followed by
Oklahoma in 1996, and then Washington and Wisconsin, both in 2007 (Harnisch,
2009, pp. 23).
In July 2005, the WA State legislature, apparently under the strong guiding
influence of then-governor Chris Gregoire and Ann Daley, executive director of
Washington Learns and executive director of the WA State Higher Education
Coordinating Board (HECB, later the Washington State Achievement Council
(WSAC)) commissioned a comprehensive review of the states entire educational
system. A steering committee and three advisory committees comprising nearly
one hundred people undertook this task, taking on the name Washington Learns.
They gathered other input and produced a final report with recommendations in
November 1997. The report generated a suite of recommendations to the WA

legislature, most of which were adapted into educational policy legislation (the rest
of which lie beyond the scope of this present writing) (Office of the Governor, 2007,
p. 1). One of the recommendations was a plan to better fund students with financial
need through conditional scholarships. Through legislation in 2007, this came to be
known as the College Bound Scholarship program and funded with several million
dollars seed money (White Center News, 2008, p. 1). The first wave of students
participating in the program received scholarship funds first in 2012.

Potential Strengths
As may be evident in the preceding short description, the College Bound
program contains some definite potential strong points. First, it was the product of
a very thorough and strategic effort; in a word: intentional. The College Bound
program represents proactive effort to improve education and access. As with its
predecessor programs in other communities and states, it aggressively acts toward
goals of justice and excellence. This likely represents a large and intuitive benefit
over waiting to react to a state-wide (or wider) crisis.
Second, and relatedly, the whole endeavor seems to have been wellsupported. In addition to the steering committee and advisory committees,
thousands of people had input in the formation of the program. This increases buyin. Early studies seem to show increasing levels of students benefitting from this
policy, committing to the program, finishing high school, and attending college; they
also seem to show improvements compared to students not enrolled in College
Bound (Frockt et al., 2014, pp. 45). I believe that I have seen some of the fruit of
this in the financial aid office in which I work in that most of the students of age to

be eligible have awareness of the program and their eligibility. This represents a
triumph of communication.
A third potential strength of the policy behind this program is that it aims to
be holistic but the concept is still simple: have students make basic collegepreparatory commitments when they are young, then honor their commitment by
making college education affordable for them. This is easy to understand for
students and parents. The simplicity of it has likely increased understanding and
buy-in, as I have noticed students and families of all ethnic and socio-economic
backgrounds have little trouble understanding the policies.
A fourth inherent strength of the policy is its potential to be sustainable over
the long-term. The state funded enough at the beginning for two years of student
funding. Wise investment of those funds, with addition of more funds that have
followed, should give the policy an ongoing fighting chance of carrying on into the
future indefinitely (Frockt et al., 2014, p. 9).
A fifth potential policy strength related to issues of access and equity is that
it, ostensibly, seeks to level the playing field and expand opportunities. While
the policy as it was crafted does not deny the element of competition (far from it,
see below), it does attempt to bring greater equity across a large and diverse
population by making higher education a possibility for all young people. To what
degree such policy-making is able to accomplish this remains to be seen, but at
least the notion is embedded in the verbiage of the policy.

Potential Weaknesses
There are many areas of corresponding potential downfall for the
implementation of College Bound policy and others like it. One danger is that some

of its more noble potential aims may be coopted toward more base ones. Since the
program constitutes a legislative policy, it is very vulnerable to the changing
political tides. Certain WA state politicians have begun to couch the issue in moral
terms, holding that, in essence, we made an agreement, now we have to keep our
word; we owe it to our children to keep that agreementand keep funding it. This
morality-based appeal is a direct attempt to circumvent the regular types of political
wrangling that take place for state budget items.
Economically, the Washington Learns report, which was the impetus for the
College Bound Scholarship program in WA State, has as a central purpose to make
WA state competitive in the global economy (Washington Learns, 2006, p. 5) with
educational reform based on economic necessity (Washington Learns, 2006, p. 4).
This strong economic imperative may skew education toward prioritizing
vocational training at the expense of a broad and liberal college education what
one author refers to as a robbing Peter to pay Paul phenomenon (Neem, 2007, p.
1). This would be an example of what Freire might refer to as a cultural action of
domination reinforcing the economic norms and expectations of the dominant
culture, particularly as defined by a few of the political elites in their exercise of
power to shape public opinion and serving to domesticate the people (Freire,
1985, p. 85). Consider the strong economic underpinnings of the following
emblematic quote from the Washington Learns Report:

Education is an investment, like investing in physical capital or stocks

and bonds. We make these investments because we expect a high rate of
return, in the form of higher wages and social benefits for the graduates, and
thriving civic communities for all of us. We know that investing in education

pays big dividendsfor individuals, for communities and for the state as a
whole.
As educational attainment increases, so does median income and
lifetime earnings (2006, p. 13).

The description here seems to go beyond just a basic investment analogy to

a reflection of a whole outlook based in strong philosophical foundations. It is
possible, then, that any perceived success or failure of the program will likewise be
judged narrowly in terms of economics and fiscal benefitby tools designed to
measure suchrather than broader, more radical, or more altruistic educational
attainments. All of this influences public perception, and the governor and state
legislature hold considerable power in how various budget investments are
presented.
Similarly, the College Bound programalong with the surrounding suite of
educational policy reforms that the state of Washington adopted in 2007grows
directly out of what the Washington Learns Report frames as a paradigm of
competition (2006, p. 12). In fact, the report attributes competition (not, for
instance, greater cooperation or equity) as the prime driver for educational reform
(2006, p. 12), even citing approvingly the competitive effect of the relationship
between the US and USSR in the cold war era! No one would deny that competition
has a compelling aspect that leads to certain types of motivation and
achievements; however, one might legitimately question if competition is the best
place to stage a foundation for an entire educational reform. Competition as a
social and economic platform suffers from the same kinds of long-standing, muchdebated pitfalls that more general notions of free market and lasseiz-faire

economics do. For just one example, it seems to imply a win-lose situation where a
limited few gobble up the allegedly limited resources before others can get to them:
we need to get ahead so that we can beat others to the best return on investment.
Some champion models where selfishness, greed, self-preservation, and
conspicuous consumption play out in all of their glory to achieve the greatest good
for all overall. Yet it seems that such a framework virtually ensures great disparity
between the wealthy and the impoverished. While this present treatment is too
brief for a thorough examination of philosophical underpinnings and related
consequences, these few brief directional cues may suffice for the present purposes
of pointing out some of the more blatant potential vulnerabilities or shortcomings
related to the origins and framework of the College Bound Scholarship program as it
has come to be.
One feature of the College Bound Scholarship program that differs from the
state-based early-commitment program in Wisconsin is that it has an economic
requirement. In my position in the financial aid office of a WA State technical
college, I have had to clarify to numerous young college students that the College
Bound Scholarship does have a financial need component and that they, by virtue
of their household earning a certain level of income relative to the state median, are
not, after all, eligible presently. They are understandably crestfallen since they have
digested the idea that as long as they sign the commitment, get C grades or better,
and follow through on attending college that their college will be paid. Now, of
course, some of this is just the challenge of communicating details of a multi-year
program to students in seventh and eighth grades. Yet it does raise the question of
whether such programs should serve only economically disadvantaged students or

students of all economic levels. Unsurprisingly this remains a matter of debate

(Harnisch, 2009, p. 6).

Summary
The College Bound program that stems from 2007 legislative policy seems to
have potential to represent either the most noble human aspirations or the most
base human inclinationsor possibly both to some degree at the same time.
Policies and programs are only actuated in specific people and circumstances.
Therefore it falls to the people of Washington State, myself included, to ensure that
the policy leading to the College Bound program maintains its most honorable
aspirations. Perhaps it does not properly reflect Freires ambitious notion of
revolution since the policy represents a reform within the existing system and
power structure and it is questionable to what degree that it arose from the raised
consciousness of the oppressed people (Freire, 1985, p. 87). Yet perhaps it
represents at least a cultural action for freedom in the sense that it raises
awareness and therewith foments further and greater revolutionary change in the
future.

References
Freire, P. (1985). The Politics of Education. New York: Greenwood.
Frockt, D., Bailey, B., Seaquist, L., Young, J., Brown, M., Fitzsimmons, T., Warren, J.
(2014). Final Report of the College Bound Scholarship Program Work Group
(Legislative) (p. 16). Olympia, WA. Retrieved from
http://www.wsac.wa.gov/sites/default/files/2015.02.11.05.CBS.Workgroup.Rep
ort.pdf
Harnisch, T. L. (2009). State Early Commitment Programs: A Contract for College
Success? (Policy Briefing) (p. 7). American Association of State Colleges and
Universities. Retrieved from
http://www.aascu.org/policy/publications/policymatters/2009/earlycommitmen
t.pdf
Kelchen, R., & Goldrick-Rab, S. (2015). Accelerating College Knowledge: A Fiscal
Analysis of a Targeted Early Commitment Pell Grant Program. Journal of
Higher Education, 86(2), 199231.
Neem, J. N. (2007, January 7). Beyond Washington Learns. The Seattle Times.
Seattle. Retrieved from http://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/beyondwashington-learns/
Office of the Governor. (2007, May 9). Governor Gregoire Signs Legislation to Make
Changes for a World-Class, Learner-Focused, Seamless Education System for
Washington, p. 1. Seattle.
Schwartz, S. (2008). Early Commitment of Student Financial Aid: Perhaps a Modest
Improvement. In The Effectiveness of Student Aid Policies: What the
Research Tells Us (pp. 117140). New York: The College Board. Retrieved from
http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Sandy_Baum/publication/265183135_The

_Effectiveness_of_Student_Aid_Policies/links/54748a5b0cf245eb436de4cd.pdf
#page=123
Washington Learns. (2006). Washington Learns, Final Report (p. 56). Olympia, WA.
Retrieved from
http://www.councilofpresidents.org/docs/r_d_docs/Final_WA_Learns.pdf
White Center News. (2008, November 3). Levy Finances College Bound program.
West Seattle Herald / White Center News. Seattle. Retrieved from
http://www.westseattleherald.com/2008/11/03/news/levy-finances-collegebound-program

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Class Presentation
Write on board: How do rich people finish this statement: Ill pay for your college
if?
[No arrests, get As, attend their alma mater, get a job, stay close to home, work for
the family business after graduation, you choose a ______ major, you make it in four
years]

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