This brief explores three examples of state policies designed to help students and families cope with rising tuition costs at four-year institutions: the Wisconsin Covenant, the Georgia HOPE Scholarship Program, and the Indiana Twenty-first Century Scholars Program. Although the authors acknowledge the important role two-year colleges play in Wisconsin's higher education system, they have chosen to limit the scope of this analysis to public four-year colleges and universities. Policy directed at increasing access has traditionally focused on these institutions because they offer the most direct route to a bachelor's degree, which in turn can provide financial rewards for the individual and the state. They evaluate the Covenant, a relatively new state program, in comparison to Twenty-first Century Scholars and HOPE--two of the first and longest-standing state scholarship programs focused on access to higher education--in terms of efficiency, equity, and political feasibility. They recommend that the state of Wisconsin adopt a hybrid model--one that integrates components of the existing Wisconsin Covenant with state scholarships targeted to low-income students--in order to provide students, families, the higher education system, and the state with the highest levels of efficiency and equity. Appended are: (1) Returns to a Bachelor's Degree; (2) Selected State Scholarship Programs; and (3) Policy Goal Matrices. (Contains 4 tables and 18 notes.)