College promise programs offering “free college” to local students are increasingly adding a new task to their core mission — connecting young people to internships and apprenticeships. The programs, in which students are promised free college tuition if they graduate high school, have long been considered a silver bullet against the soaring tuition and loan debt...

Grand Rapids college placement advisor Sarah Zwyghuizen normally starts cajoling high school seniors in October to fill out the federal financial aid forms that are key to unlocking their chances of going to college. Not this year. A U.S. Department of Education delay in revising the forms known as the Free Application for Federal Student...

Marco Chavez presses a foot-long piece of bare wooden siding into a gap along a window and pulls the trigger on his drill. Chavez, 17, a recent graduate of College Bridge Academy, a charter high school in the city of Compton in Los Angeles County, steps back and nods while his instructor watches him. This...