The following is an excerpt from an article posted by the Washington Post. 

What if every student who graduated from a city’s public high schools were guaranteed the money needed to go to college?

An experiment like this is under way in Syracuse and Buffalo through the efforts of a New York foundation called Say Yes to Education. The Syracuse promise dates to 2008, and the Buffalo version to 2011. In all, the foundation has helped more than 3,600 graduates from the two New York cities — many of them from low-income families — go to college.

There are caveats and conditions. Perhaps the biggest is that the students themselves have to be admitted to a participating college. But still, the prospect of a full-tuition guarantee is a radical and powerful motivator, not only for individual students but for civic leaders who want to improve their K-12 schools.

Read the full story from the Washington Post here.