VT's Free Degree Promise

Accelerated degree pathways are a game changer for young people furthest from opportunity.

That's why we have extended the Free Degree Promise to include Vermont’s high school classes of 2027 and 2028. The extension ensures that current 10th and 11th graders will have the opportunity to complete a free CCV associate degree of their choosing just one year after high school graduation, a benefit first offered to the classes of 2023 through 2026.

Since launch, the Free Degree Promise has helped hundreds of young Vermonters pursue fast-tracked, debt-free degrees. Students on this pathway are graduating at twice the rate and in half the time as community college students nationally.

Accelerated pathways to debt-free degrees are good for Vermonters – and good for Vermont.

Fast-tracked degrees are giving young Vermonters hope that a pathway to a promising job is within reach.

Back in 2022, the McClure Foundation approached the question of how to equitably scale pathways to Vermont’s Most Promising Jobs from a place of curiosity: in a state with declining high school graduation rates and the lowest college-going rates in New England, what happens when all Vermont high school seniors are given the opportunity to pursue a fast-tracked, debt-free CCV degree?

In its first three years, Vermont's Free Degree Promise is making college the easy choice for Vermont youth.

Read about the impacts:

“The thing I’m most excited about is being able to get into what I want to do at a young age. With an associate degree, I could get a great accounting job at the age of 19. But even if I go on to a bachelor’s or master’s degree, I’ll still be in my early twenties when I graduate. That feels like a really big win for me.”

Donovan Arnold | Free Degree Promise graduate

Donovan spent his 12th grade year enrolled in Early College at CCV, blending full-time college courses with paid work at his town’s only grocery store and staying connected to his high school through the dance team and mentoring the middle school band. In one of his CCV courses, he completed a 100-hour internship with the accounting team at the nonprofit behavioral, dental and health care organization that runs the grocery where he works. He graduated from high school in June 2024 with a bookkeeping certificate and 30 credits toward his accounting degree. He continued at CCV and graduated just one year later with a debt-free accounting degree, prepared to land a promising job or continue toward a bachelor’s degree. There are projected to be over 2,280 accounting jobs in Vermont with salaries above the state median in the coming decade.

Vermont's Early College Program helps students get a head start on college—tuition-free.

Vermont’s Early College program lets eligible students spend their senior year of high school taking
college classes full time—tuition-free. Students who successfully finish Early College earn college credits, receive their high school diploma, and explore career paths. Early College is part of the state’s Flexible Pathways Initiative, designed to help more students graduate from high school, get ready for college or job training, and keep learning after graduation.

Where Are They Now?

We’re now three years into the Free Degree Promise and can report that it’s working to make college the easy choice for young Vermonters. Accelerated degree pathways give students what they need—hope and a solid paycheck and positive place in their community just one year after graduating high school—while also giving Vermont what it needs.

What are Free Degree Promise students doing with their degrees?

Take Action!

Read our 2021 white paper with data commissioned from Public Assets Institute that makes a case for articulating a strategic priority for higher education policy in Vermont and investing state funding to connect young people who are furthest from opportunity to promising jobs.

Learn more about enrolling in the Free Degree Promise:

Visit CCV for resources

Join the campaign to make the Free Degree Promise permanent:

Sign onto a letter of support

“Right now, too many Vermonters struggle to build a bright, secure future regardless of how hard they work. That experience is corrosive to our sense of community, especially as it plays out in the small villages and rural towns so frequently left out of the global economy. Accelerated pathways to free degrees play a key role in closing opportunity gaps.”

Dan Smith | President & CEO, Vermont Community Foundation