During a House appropriations subcommittee hearing on Wednesday that focused on the role of community colleges in preparing Americans for jobs, several GOP lawmakers questioned a panel of witnesses — which included a community college president — about extending Pell Grant eligibility to certain short-term programs, alluding to their support of it.
Republican and Democratic members of the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies Subcommittee were complimentary of the work of community colleges, with several lawmakers citing the colleges in their districts and even noting they themselves were former community college students or taught at two-year colleges. But the Trump adminsitration’s expected executive order to dismantle the U.S. Education Department (ED) cast a cloud over the hearing. Several Democrats noted the irony of having an appropriations hearing with so much support on the panel for community colleges at a time when Republicans are signaling proposed cuts to many programs that benefit community college students.
In her opening remarks, ranking member Rosa DeLauro (D-Connecticut) chastised the administration’s defunding of ED’s research arm this week. And while community colleges were getting kudos from panel members, she noted Republican proposals to slash funding for youth and adult job training programs and certain student aid programs, which many community college students use.
“That is only where they began. Because they are coming for community colleges next,” said DeLauro, who created the Strengthening Community College Training (SCCT) Grants program when she chaired the appropriations subcommittee.
Provide economic mobility
Vicki Karolewics, president of Wallace State Community College in Alabama, provided the appropriations panel with an overview of the array of students and programs that her college offers in its rural area. She said the college’s workforce development successes are due to its focus on “powerful partnerships and purposeful pathways.”
Karolewics gave as an example Wallace State’s nursing program pathway, which comprises stacked credentials. Students can earn a practical nursing credential as they move toward an associate degree in registered nursing.
“Should that student be forced to stop out due to life circumstances, he or she could still work as an LPN [licensed practical nurse] and make a living wage,” she said.
Karolewics noted that earn-and-learn programs are also crucial to helping Wallace State students, many of whom are raising families and need to work. She cited the college’s registered apprenticeship program for nursing, the first in the state, which allows students to work several days a week at a hospital, while they work on their associate degree in nursing.
“That is a life-changing opportunity for a single mother,” Karolewics said.
Short-term programs
When asked about the benefits of more flexibility to use Pell grants, Karolewics said it would provide much-needed assistance to students like those in the college’s popular commercial truck driving program. Students who complete the four-to-five-week program can earn, on average, more than $60,000 annually at entry-level jobs in Alabama, she said.
Karolewics also highlighted Wallace State’s Diesel by Distance program, which is largely online and uses virtual training coupled with just-in-time, in-person skill validation sessions during evenings and weekends. The college tapped federal grants through the Workforce Opportunities for Rural Communities (WORC) Initiative, which is managed by the U.S. Department of Labor.
“We would not have been able to do that without the funding provided through the WORC grant,” she said, noting that the first graduate of the program was a single mother.
Rep. Julia Letlow (R-Louisiana), who expressed support for workforce Pell, was among the lawmakers on the panel who gave shout-outs to community colleges in their districts that are working with local business and industry. She mentioned that Louisiana Delta Community College partnered with the Northeast Louisiana Power Cooperative and local workforce development board to develop a 16-week line worker program. It graduated its first cohort of 10 students last fall, with another group of six students completing their training last week, she said. A third cohort is expected to begin in March.
Despite stymied efforts to pass legislation, congressional support for workforce Pell has been growing. During the annual Community College National Legislative Summit this week in Washington, D.C., several Senate and House lawmakers noted their support for workforce Pell, including Burgess Owens (R-Utah), vice chair of House Education and Workforce Committee, and Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kansas) of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, who attended Butler Community College (Kansas) on his way to becoming a physician.
Partnering with workforce boards
At Wednesday’s hearing, Mary Alice McCarthy, senior director of the Center on Education & Labor at New America, said she hopes the hearing’s discussion will lead to more funding for public two-year colleges.
“I have never heard anyone complain that community colleges are just getting too much money,” or that they can provide all of the support services that their students need, she said.
But when community colleges get additional funding, whether it is targeted grants like the SCCT program or the federal emergency funds during the Covid pandemic, they put them to good use, McCarthy said. They use such resources to develop training programs for new and emerging sectors, like artificial intelligence and electric vehicles, and build new industry partnerships and work-based learning opportunities, in addition to providing services students need and data systems to help the colleges understand who their students are.
Yet, McCarthy expressed concerns over recent efforts to curb education research and funding that would benefit students. She noted that current funding for career and technical education is less than it was in 2001. She would like to see funding for the Perkins program tripled to $4 billion annually.
McCarthy also provided examples of how community colleges are working with local workforce development boards in using federal funding that comes through Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act programs. For example, Rowan College of South Jersey and the local workforce development board share staff space on the college campus.
“This allows them to work together to leverage the workforce system’s resources for building sector partnerships and engaging employers with the community college’s deep expertise on how to serve students who might need extra supports or developmental education,” McCarthy said. She also noted that New Jersey’s County College of Morris is collaborating with the local workforce development system to create a registered apprenticeship program that leads to an associate degree.
“This not the time to be cutting our workforce development system,” she said.