The objective of the Straube Foundation is to show how anyone anywhere can obtain quality education at little or no cost. Our primary focus is online education as the vehicle to meet this goal, but educators and philanthropists are finding many ways to provide a quality post-high school education at little or no cost.
Some political jurisdictions are spending tax dollars to offer free education at local community colleges and technical certificate programs.
In 2015, the State of Tennessee was the first state to offer free two-year community college education to every in-state high school graduate, without regard to income or GPA. At least twenty other states have followed suit, although each program has differing eligibility requirements and covers different types of post-high-school programs: Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, Virginia, and Washington.
Local jurisdictions are getting into the act as well. In 2018, the City of Seattle started a similar initiative. In 2023, Seattle Promise received 2,500 applications, with 1,400 high school graduates actually enrolling in one of the three eligible community colleges. To enable low income students to take advantage of this opportunity, Seattle Promise now also offers “equity scholarships,” providing up to $1,000 in living expenses per quarter.
Some benefactors are creating very large endowments at professional schools to ensure that any qualified individual can attend medical or law school. In early July 2024, Bloomberg Philanthropies created a $1 billion endowment at Johns Hopkins University to ensure that medical students from low-income families can attend medical school for free (including tuition, living expenses and fees). In February 2024, Ruth Gottesman donated $1 billion to the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, intending that all medical students can attend the school tuition-free, regardless of family income. In 2018 and 2023, NYU Grossman School of Medicine received endowments totaling $300 million to provide free tuition for all its medical students. These endowments have dual purposes: (1) to enable all interested individuals to become doctors, regardless of family income; and (2) to encourage medical students to go into less lucrative practice fields such as primary care, mental health, and rural and underserved communities.
Law schools are playing catch-up with the growing trend of free tuition at top-ranking medical schools. In February 2024, Harvard Law School announced a tuition-free initiative for students with the highest financial need. Yale Law School has a small endowment that provides free tuition for a few students from economically disadvantaged families each year. And there are at least three international law schools that offer free (or almost free) tuition: University of Bergen (Norway. Master in Law program), Heidelberg University (Germany, $1500 Euro/semester), and Arctic University of Norway (environmental issue focus).
