Pasadena City College (PCC) formally announced a groundbreaking tuition-free program for certain high school graduates at a press conference on Mar. 29. The new program, dubbed the “PCC Promise”, is one of few tuition-free programs among other two-year colleges around the country, inspired by the inflation of college tuition within the last 20 years.

PCC’s Executive Director of Strategic Communications and Marketing, Alex Boekelheide, told the press that PCC has been planning the PCC Promise for quite a while, stating, “It’s tricky once you start to get into the details of a program like this. We wanted to make sure that we created a program that was sustainable, and reflected our own student population, and was something that could live in the long term.” The high expenses of college life are a large obstacle for many people striving to gain further education. According to the President of the Board of Trustees in the Pasadena Area Community College District, Ross Selvidge, research shows that “California needs to produce 1.1 million extra college graduates by 2030 in order to keep our economy growing”, and the availability of programs like these have made college education more affordable for families and given teens opportunities they might not have had without a college degree.

With college being an important factor in success and a stepping stone to having a career, PCC made sure to form the Promise with community support. Multiple K-12 local school districts assisted in creating the program and developing the guidelines and qualifications. To be eligible for the PCC Promise, high school graduates must have obtained their diploma from any Pasadena Area Community College District public or private high school and register for the fall semester immediately following graduation. The only exception to this rule are students serving the military after high school graduation, who must register the succeeding fall after their service term. Scholars are required to take nine units per semester and maintain a minimum 2.0 GPA to stay in the program. The PCC Promise will cover all costs for individual students for one academic year after any other scholarships are applied to their term and will be available Fall 2017.