Free college, or "Promise" programs--a model of student aid that covers at least full tuition costs for a subset of a given state's residents--have received a significant boost in the past few years. A central question has been whether the model benefits from more consistent political support over time as compared to other forms of financial aid or other higher education spending. So how have Promise programs fared in retaining political support over time, and what can we learn from past experience? In order to explore whether a "free college" design correlates with budgetary staying power, the author identified six statewide free college programs in existence during what would have been the greatest test of fiscal sustainability in recent decades: the Great Recession. Like today's free college programs, none of these state programs--in Delaware, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, and Oklahoma--are truly universal. This report examines the financial sustainability of six Promise programs during the Great Recession, analyzes which factors may have impacted state legislators' funding of these programs, and identifies lessons from the experiences of those programs that can be applied to other free college and financial aid programs going forward.