The Concordia Promise has officially been renewed for a second year at Concordia after increased enrollment and a large number of students receiving the benefits of the program point to its success.
The Concordia Promise is an initiative first implemented by Concordia at the beginning of the 2024-2025 academic year, offering free tuition to students with an adjusted gross income of $90,000 a year or less.
According to Ben Iverson, the vice president of enrollment at Concordia, the Concordia Promise was designed in part as a response to the Minnesota legislature’s new program, the Minnesota North Star Promise.
The North Star Promise offered free tuition at public institutions within the state for students with an adjusted gross income of $80,000 annually or less.
“The private schools like Concordia were sort of cut out of that deal. And so it’s interesting in part because, of course, Concordia competes pretty strongly with some of our local public colleges and universities, right?” Iverson said. “So we felt like we needed to, you know, sort of react to that. And so, in some ways, we feel like we did it one better by having a little bit higher income threshold, and also the fact that we’ve opened up the Concordia promise to students from any state, so you don’t have to be a Minnesotan to benefit.”
The Concordia Promise has been a success in many ways, according to Iverson. Feedback has been positive, and the numbers speak for themselves.
Ayden Shauer, first year student and recipient of the Concordia Promise, said the promise helped her solidify her decision.
Shauer said The Concordia Promise helped solidify her choice to come to Concordia. The financial support was the main factor and Concordia’s support, a close second.
“It didn’t seem like, ‘hey, we’re going to give you money, but you have to pay us back later.’ It was like, ‘no, we’re giving you this money so you can, like, enjoy your time here,” she said.
“The effect for Fall 2024 was really positive. We saw about a 10% uptick in students that qualify for the promise compared to the fall 2023 class. It didn’t exist then, but at least if you look at that income band among Concordia students, about a 10% uptick. And overall, we saw about a 27% increase in enrollment when it comes to first year students for Fall 2024. The Concordia Promise didn’t do all of that, but it certainly played a role,” Iverson said.
214 first years and transfer students for the 2024-2025 academic year were awarded the Concordia Promise, though some chose to go elsewhere. All who applied for the Promise received it, something that may change in fall 2025. According to Iverson, the only change being made to the initiative for next year is the implementation of a Dec. 15 priority deadline, meaning students need to apply before Dec. 15 to be guaranteed the Promise. After the deadline, students are not certain to receive the Promise.
“The reason for that is that the program proved pretty popular, and there’s an expense to it, of course, and so we’re deeply grateful to Concordia alumni and donors to help us be able to afford the program. But we don’t want it to be, we don’t want it to become so popular that we can’t afford to do it anymore. So having the having the deadline just gives us a little bit of a safety valve in case too many students apply,” Iverson said.
Besides the more obvious effects of the Promise, like increased enrollment and giving students a large financial break, there are other, less intentional effects of the Promise that have been noticed.
Iverson said he found it surprising how many counselors, students, and families assume private colleges are simply too expensive to consider. He said an unexpected outcome of the promise has been the shift in conversations of private colleges.
“(The Concordia Promise) shows that anyone can come here. It might be harder for others, but I think because, for me, I got a lot of scholarships to come here, so that also really helped. So, it’s not like, ‘oh, it’s a rich school.’ It’s more of like, ‘people have worked hard to get here,’ yeah, because also, like the GPA and, like a ACT Accuplacer stuff. (Concordia) really cares about where you are,” Shauer said.
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