Investing in the High-Demand Workforce: Effects of the Arkansas Future Grant on STEM Degree Attainment

• In Event: Drivers of Educational Attainment

Abstract

While higher education benefits both individuals and society, rising college costs and structural barriers increasingly hinder degree access and completion. These barriers include complex financial aid processes, insufficient academic preparation, and challenges in program selection and completion (Duncheon, 2015; Perna, 2024). Community college students - especially those from low-income backgrounds, first-generation college students, and adult learners - face these challenges most acutely (Scott-Clayton, 2015; Dynarski et al., 2023). At the same time, economic shifts, including technological advancements, automation, and the gig economy, are reshaping workforce demands, making it critical for community colleges to equip students with modern labor market skills (Stanford, 2017; Acemoglu & Restrepo, 2019; Bonilla & Sparks, 2025). Community colleges, known for their adaptability to industry needs, are uniquely positioned to address these demands (Kisker, Cohen, & Brawer, 2023).

To tackle these barriers, tuition-free college initiatives, or college promise programs, have gained traction as a strategy to improve affordability and align education with workforce needs. By March 2023, over 440 promise programs were operating nationwide at institutional, municipal, and state levels (College Promise, 2025). These programs aim to reduce enrollment and completion barriers, with some targeting specific fields to address labor shortages (Bonilla & Sparks, 2025). Existing research largely examines their impact on enrollment but offers mixed findings on degree completion, likely due to differences in eligibility, funding, and student support structures (Gurantz, 2020; House & Dell, 2020; Nguyen, 2020). Addressing these gaps is critical to understanding how tuition-free programs influence long-term educational and workforce outcomes.

The Arkansas Future Grant (ArFuture Grant), launched in 2016, provides a unique opportunity to evaluate a workforce-oriented tuition-free college initiative. Designed to address labor market needs, the program prioritizes students pursuing associate degrees or certifications in STEM or high-demand fields. It offers last-dollar-plus grant aid and limited mentoring support. ArFuture Grant’s eligibility criteria facilitate a quasi-experimental difference-in-differences (DID) framework, enabling comparisons of outcomes for students in Arkansas and neighboring states before and after the program’s introduction. This allows for robust evaluation of its impact on STEM degree attainment in community colleges.

Using a panel-based DID approach, this study evaluates ArFuture Grant’s early effects on STEM degree completion. Specifically, it examines both absolute changes in the total number of degrees awarded and relative changes in the proportion of STEM degrees among all degrees (Zhang, 2011). Findings reveal that the ArFuture Grant significantly increased STEM degree attainment in community colleges, with a 1.4-1.9 percentage point increase in the proportion of STEM degrees awarded. These results hold across two robustness checks.

This study contributes to the growing evidence on workforce-focused tuition-free college programs, demonstrating that such initiatives can address educational and labor market challenges. The findings provide valuable insights for policymakers and practitioners seeking to align higher education with evolving workforce demands, particularly in under-resourced regions.

Author

• Lu Xu, University of Washington
  Presenting Author