KALAMAZOO, Mich.

The 2006 class of Kalamazoo Public Schools is learning that a free ride in college doesn't guarantee success but it still can come in very handy.

"It's just something else that I don't have to think about," says Alex Plair II.

Plair, 18, who is about to enter his second year at Western Michigan University, was among the first students to benefit from The Kalamazoo Promise, an anonymously funded free-tuition program for graduates of the district's high schools.

Even without the worry of college tuition payments and student loans, he faced many of the same challenges of other freshmen their first time living away from home, and his first semester at Western Michigan last fall didn't go as well as he had hoped. The lifelong Kalamazoo resident decided to live in a residence hall, where he had some difficulty concentrating on his studies.

"When I was in high school, I would come home and my parents would always say, 'You've got to study,'" he says. "Now you're just on your own. You have so much free time, you really have to plan out your day or else you get caught up in things that distract you from your work."

School started going better for him about midway through the semester, after his roommate moved out. They got along well enough, says Plair, but it became easier to hit the books with the dorm room to himself.

By the end of his second semester, the mature-beyond-his-years engineering student had boosted his cumulative GPA to 3.48, well above what was required for him to renew his annual scholarship from The Kalamazoo Promise.

To keep the scholarship, a student must attend a public university or community college in Michigan, maintain at least a 2.0 GPA and successfully complete at least 12 credit hours each semester.

The scholarship provides tuition and mandatory fees for post-secondary education on a sliding scale based on how long a student attends Kalamazoo schools before graduation. Because Plair was a student in the district from kindergarten through 12th grade, he received a 100 percent scholarship. He also jumped on Western Michigan's offer to provide four years of free room and board to Promise scholarship recipients.