New Haven Promises College Tuition

The city has an offer for freshmen in its public high schools: Keep up good grades and stay in school, and you’ll get a full ride to a state college or university.

That’s part of a new “Promise” the city unveiled Tuesday as part of its ambitious school reform drive.

It will pay 25 percent of the tuition for qualifying seniors who go on to public colleges or universities in Connecticut next year; 50 percent for the class after that, 75 percent for the following class; and 100 percent for the Class of 2014. Then funders will decide whether to continue the program.

Yale University has pledged up to $4 million per year to fund the new college tuition program, called New Haven Promise, according to Mayor John DeStefano, Jr. The program will be available to New Haven residents who attend public schools, with some conditions. Yale has committed to fund the program for an initial eight years as it is phased in for the four classes of current high school students; the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven will pay for the employees to administer the fund.

The program is a “contract that says to kids: If you work hard, you demonstrate academic achievement and display appropriate behaviors, we’ll give you the tools to go to college and therefore inject choice and opportunity in your lives,” said the mayor.

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