Oklahoma's Promise Program

Summary of Policy Considerations and Agency Recommendations

The Oklahoma State Legislature and State Regents may consider the following:

Policy Considerations:

• Establish a residency requirement for Oklahoma’s Promise graduates.
• Reduce reliance on General Revenue by limiting the Trust Fund balance to no more than 10 percent of the last completed fiscal year’s allocation. If the fund were to exceed the ten percent limit, the excess funds would be rolled back into the General Revenue Fund (GRF).
• Revaluate legislative peer benchmarks against which Oklahoma tuition is compared.
• Require regular review of the scholarship’s income limit and formula, with a focus on adjusting for inflation.
• Modify the qualifying income eligibility for recipients to include family size.
• Require the collection and sharing of data from private institutions participating in Oklahoma’s Promise, including student performance metrics and student enrollment data.

Agency Recommendations:

• The State Regents should collaborate with Oklahoma’s higher education institutions to determine the primary factors contributing to low graduation rates among Oklahoma’s Promise recipients.
• The State Regents should seek to develop cooperative agreements with the Oklahoma Employment Security Commission (OESC) and surrounding state workforce agencies to track Oklahoma’s Promise recipients in the workforce outside of Oklahoma.
• The State Regents should work to conduct research into both the retention and graduation barriers of Oklahoma’s Promise recipients to identify challenges that prohibit recipients from earning post-secondary credentials.