The list of students who are eligible for Tennessee Promise now has 20,000 fewer names on it.

Nearly every high school senior in the state applied for the free community and technical college program last fall, but a third of them didn’t complete the first mandatory steps.

About a quarter of the applicants statewide missed their initial mandatory meeting with a mentor, according to data from Tennessee Promise. Another 11 percent didn’t fill out the application for federal financial aid.

Staying Eligible

On Monday, students packed into a cafeteria at Nashville’s McGavock
High School for their second in-person meeting with a mentor. One of the organizers, Krissy
DeAlejandro
, took the mic
.

“You are still Tennessee Promise-eligible, so give yourself a giant round of applause for making this giant milestone,” she said. 

But many students did not make that milestone, especially in Middle Tennessee
. In Davidson and Wilson Counties, for example, nearly half of the students who applied for Tennessee Promise last fall are no longer eligible.

Statewide, there are 38,000 high school seniors left in the program, down from 58,000 last November.

Despite the dropoff, program director Mike Krause touts these numbers as a success. The first in-person meeting weeded out kids who were never serious about the program, he said. Among students who attended that meeting, 89 percent submitted their federal financial aid application, called FAFSA.

“To have that many students complete the FAFSA, we think, validates the mentorship approach of Tennessee Promise. Students were able to have that framework of support,” he said. “I think, for a new program, those are pretty enviable numbers.”

What’s Next

These latest numbers still don’t say much about how many students will end up using Tennessee Promise money this fall.

The state originally estimated that only about 12,000 students would take advantage of free community or technical college. That estimate has only grown a little — now, it’s 12,000 to 16,000, Krause said — but it’s hard to calculate how many 
students are only applying to Tennessee Promise as a backup option.

“We know we have a group of students who are probably completing all the program requirements and holding Tennessee Promise in reserve, and there’s a very high likelihood many of them would go to a four-year school all along,” Krause said. “That is certainly one of the X factors.”

What percentage of high school seniors are still eligible in your county? Click on the interactive map below.