Posted by Maica Pichler on September 07, 2016 at 8:49 AM
The Campaign for Free College Tuition kicked off Spring by hosting another successful regional Summit on College Affordability. The event was held in Nashville on March 30th and included representatives from 10 states – including gubernatorial staff and State Higher Education Executive Officers – anxious to learn about the Tennessee Promise program and other pioneering place-based scholarship programs in the South. We were also glad that former Arkansas Lt. Governor, and current CFCT steering committee member, Bill Halter, was able to join us.
The event would not have been possible without Governor Haslam's staff willingness to share how the Tennessee Promise advanced from a community based scholarship program in Knox County to a statewide program that is the centerpiece of the Governor’s Drive to 55 initiative, which seeks to have 55% percent of Tennesseans equipped with a college degree or certificate by the year 2025.
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Posted by Maica Pichler on July 12, 2016 at 12:20 PM
The Campaign for Free College Tuition concluded a series of six regional Summits on College Affordability at the Ford Foundation in New York City on July 21st. Similar to other Summits in the series, there were over 50 attendees, including leading business, philanthropic and civic leaders. While CFCT’s fearless leader, Morley Winograd, was unable to travel to New York due to a minor leg injury, we were very pleased that U.S. Undersecretary of Education Ted Mitchell was able to join us for the fourth time to help kickoff the event and speak on President Obama’s America’s College Promise initiative.
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Posted by Maica Pichler on December 03, 2015 at 12:27 PM
In part to celebrate Michigan’s historic role in providing leadership on the issue of public education, our fourth Summit on College Affordability was held on November 13th in the Detroit suburb of Southfield.
In 1986, then Governor James Blanchard established the nation’s first ever prepaid college tuition savings plan – the Michigan Education Trust (MET). To this day, MET allows in-state families to pre-purchase undergraduate tuition for any Michigan public college and university. We were very fortunate to have Governor Blanchard join us in his capacity of Co-Chair of CFCT Advisory Board to welcome Summit speakers and guests and help frame the discussion.
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Posted by Maica Pichler on August 31, 2015 at 10:43 AM
"The need for more affordable colleges isn't partisan, it is not even bipartisan, it is non-partisan... It is like the North Star being in the North," said State Senator Mark Hass (D-Oregon) at last Thursday's Pacific Northwest Summit on College Affordability hosted by the Campaign for Free College Tuition.
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Posted by Maica Pichler on April 24, 2015 at 9:17 AM
When President Obama announced his proposal, America’s College Promise, to make community colleges in America tuition free, it spurred a renewed dialogue among policy makers, the higher education community, the business community and others on how to reform our higher education system to make it an engine for economic mobility and growth in the United States. The Campaign for Free College Tuition is helping focus these discussions by hosting a series of regional Summits on how to make college more affordable.
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Posted by Maica Pichler on February 06, 2015 at 7:29 AM
On a snowy day in late January, higher education community leaders, millennial group representatives and others committed to making college tuition free, convened in Washington, DC, for the Campaign for Free College Tuition’s first ever Free College Summit. After opening remarks by U.S. Under Secretary of Education Ted Mitchell and former Governors James Blanchard and Michael Castle, participants discussed a wide range of dimensions of the free tuition concept and were given an extensive opportunity to express, as expected, many different points of view on those topics. Most, if not all, of the attendees however indicated they have some interest in building a coalition to support free community colleges in some fashion.
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