On November 3rd, the Liberty over Lunch students hosted Professor Celeste Carruthers of the University of Tennessee. Professor Carruthers holds the William F. Fox Distinguished Professorship of Labor Economics in the Haslam College of Business.
Professor Carruthers presented her work examining the “free community college” program on college credit accumulation, college completion, and medium-term labor-market outcomes. The Knox Achieves Program pledges tuition-free community college to any Knox County, Tennessee high school graduate and served as the model for the statewide Tennessee Promise program as well as local and state initiatives across the U.S. She and her coauthor find that Knox Achieves eligibility led to a 24% higher likelihood of attaining an associate’s degree within nine years of high school, alongside positive but insignificant changes in the likelihood of attaining a bachelor’s degree, and negative but insignificant changes in in-state earnings.
Professor Carruthers also fielded questions about her life as a graduate student at the University of Florida, her experience looking for a job after earning her Ph.D., and how students should prepare for graduate school.