The Wisconsin Covenant: A Closer Look at Participants,Access,and Redistribution in Higher Education

In recent years, policy makers in the federal government have repeatedly acknowledged a policy problem surrounding the rising cost of higher education and its relation to attendance and retention of low- and middle-income and minority students. With higher education policy making mainly confined to state governments, however, distinctive solutions to this problem have been arising in individual states. This article presents an overview of the data collected about students that were eligible to sign the covenant, a discussion about the effect of this type of funding on the redistributive nature of higher education, and a hypothesis about the ability of this program to achieve its goal. The authors find that the program participation rate is lower in more racially diverse public schools and in public schools with more students qualified for subsidized lunches.