It is argued that free-tuition higher education increases opportunity for underrepresented students with positive equity implications. Moreover, access to higher education for free expands existing visions of equal opportunity, as it changes aspirations and behavior. In 2015, Tennessee became the first state in the nation to implement a universal free-tuition community college program called the Tennessee Promise, a model that became the blueprint for initiatives at state and local levels. This study uses a systemic approach to compare the Tennessee Promise with Argentina's free-tuition model, a longer-running free and open-access program. The comparison provides an opportunity to assess the equity implications of two tuition-free and open-access programs, by describing their funding structure, analyzing the evolution of enrollment and the changes in student characteristics, identifying changes in institutional behavior, examining the equity visions behind policy design, and extracting lessons from both experiences.

Whereas Argentina's argument in favor of free college is political, as higher education provides a space for political engagement and citizenship building, the argument in Tennessee is an economic one, where the increase in degree attainment is expected to further economic development in the state. These different visions shape policy design, incentives, and levels of funding. The study found that, despite their differences, currently both programs increase the opportunity of access for underrepresented students but offer them low chances of success in the short term, which is evidenced by comparable retention and graduation rates. Nonetheless, data for Argentina show that, in the long term, attainment increases for all income brackets, although gaps still exist. Finally, the study shows that having underrepresented students in the system pushes policy makers to rethink equity and drives institutional and policy changes, creating conditions for policy innovation to increase the retention and graduation of low-income and minority students.