Abstract
Substantial shares of eligible students forgo or lose access to tuition-free college benefits, in part due to limited access to information on eligibility and other requirements. Given students’ dependence on the Internet for information on how to pay for college, we examine the availability and digital accessibility of critical program information on websites for the population of statewide tuition-free (Promise) programs (N = 39). To this end, we use an original dataset on Promise program websites and descriptive quantitative analyses. Drawing on the framework of administrative burdens from public administration, this study sheds light on potential informational barriers (learning costs) students may face in accessing Promise programs benefits. Findings indicate that Promise program websites prominently feature the benefits and requirements for initial eligibility. In contrast, certain eligibility criteria, information on deadlines, and renewal requirements are not readily available. We find limited options for students to contact program representatives and large variability across websites, signaling that programs could learn from others to reduce learning costs for students by providing more accessible information on official program websites.
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Not all promise program websites were official state websites. For example, Hawaii Promise is on the University of Hawaii Community Colleges website. PACT is on the Connecticut state colleges and universities system page.
See https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/ for more information on WCAG 2.
AChecker Web Accessibility Checker https://achecker.achecks.ca/checker/index.php.
See https://www.ada.gov/ for the latest information on ADA.
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We are grateful to Dr. Meredith Billings for her comments on an earlier version of this manuscript.
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We thank the William T. Grant Foundation for supporting this work through a Scholars Award (Grant ID #201035). This research was also supported in part by grant, P2CHD042849, Population Research Center, awarded to the Population Research Center at The University of Texas at Austin by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.
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All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection, and analysis were performed by Denisa Gándara, Rosa Maria Acevedo, Diana Cervantes, Marco Antonio Quiroz, and Isabel McMullen. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Denisa Gándara, Rosa Maria Acevedo, Diana Cervantes, Tarini Kumar, and Isabel McMullen and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Gándara, D., Acevedo, R.M., Cervantes, D. et al. Learning About Tuition-Free College: Evaluating the Availability and Digital Accessibility of Information on Promise Program Websites. Innov High Educ (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10755-024-09721-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10755-024-09721-9