Mar 05, 2015 03:07 PM EST By Russell Westerholm, UniversityHerald Reporter

When trying to figure out how President Barack Obama's free community college plan, one can look to a program that inspired it: Tulsa Achieves.

According to Inside Higher Ed, Oklahoma's Tulsa Community College (TCC) introduced the program in 2007 and it covers three years of a student's education or 63 credits. The idea is to try and give qualifying students a shot at a tuition-free associates degree.

To qualify, Tulsa County high school students need to graduate with a 2.0 GPA and complete 40 hours of community service each year at TCC. The school enrolled 1,350 students in the first year of Tulsa Achieves and now has a student body of about 20,000.

"We nearly doubled our first-time freshmen," Lauren Brookey, vice president for external affairs at TCC, told IHE.

The Obama Administration hopes to achieve what Tulsa County did: higher degree completion rates. Paying for college is increasingly cumbersome and the U.S. economy is in recovery, but a bachelor's degree is still far more valuable in average mid-career earnings than a high school diploma.

Obama's American College Promise requires community college students to maintain a 2.5 GPA and consistently be enrolled in classes at a part-time basis at least. The proposal is also tied to a student's finances, as those making more than $200,000 in Adjusted Gross Income are ineligible.

Brookey said the objective of Tulsa Achieves is to eliminate anyone's excuse not to go to college, as an Associate's Degree has multiple uses. TCC estimated one in every five Tulsa County high school graduate took advantage of the program.

Obama's plan is approaching the issue from the national level and therefore will rely on states' and individual colleges' participation. Though Obama hopes to mandate the Promise, the proposal's critics do not like the sentiment.

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