Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin’s Birmingham Promise, a program aiming to help students get jobs and degrees tuition-free, is modeled after one of the first of such programs in the country: the Kalamazoo Promise.

The Kalamazoo Promise helps students in the Kalamazoo city school system in Michigan afford higher education. Like the Birmingham Promise, it’s set up to benefit students who’ve been part of the city school system and lived in the school district boundaries since kindergarten.

“It’s an expensive thing to do. But the generosity [we’ve experienced] is unreal,” said Von Washington Jr., executive director of community relations for the Kalamazoo Promise.

“We’re excited about the Birmingham promise.”

Washington is excited for Birmingham because the Kalamazoo Promise has brought positive change to the Kalamazoo school system. Just before the promise was announced in 2005, Washington said the school was losing students fast.

Since then, the district’s enrollment has grown 25 percent and the number of students graduating has grown from about 450 students to now nearly 700 every year. Now, about 95 percent of Kalamazoo graduates pursue higher education after college. Birmingham has about 1,000 to 1,200 graduates each year.

As of this spring, 5,762 students have utilized all or some of the Kalamazoo Promise to go to college. Of those students, 2,018 have earned a degree, officials said.

The Kalamazoo Promise spends about $15.5 million each year--an amount that’s rising every year, Washington said. Since the program started in 2006, the program has spent more than $125 million on tuition and fees for Kalamazoo grads, Washington said.

All the donors are anonymous--which is different from Woodfin’s plan to have some anonymous and some named donors.

“I’m so grateful as someone who works in that they remain anonymous. Who are you going to blame?” Washington asked.

The program has changed the culture of the students and the surrounding residents, giving both a greater sense of hope and community, Washington said. Police say it’s helped reduce the juvenile crime rate in the city.

“The Kalamazoo Promise is a beacon of hope for the youth in this community,” said Kalamazoo Public Safety Chief Jeff Hadley. “People realize we need to get kids to the point where they can get to that pot of gold. I can’t help but think it’s having a positive impact.”

But the promise hasn’t led every student to the “pot of gold.” For some students, money is just one of a list of many barriers to higher education.

“If I’m in poverty today and get a scholarship tomorrow, I’m still in poverty,” Washington said. He said the Kalamazoo Promise team is working in other ways to help students get an education. The program alone, he said, has spurred other programs and initiatives to help young adults in Kalamazoo find success, whether they earn a bachelor’s degree or a vocational certificate.

The city of Birmingham has not said how much it expects the Birmingham Promise will cost per year or how much money it has already received. Woodfin said he hopes to endow the promise at $35 million.