Across the country, nearly 1,200 community colleges serve as the vehicle for higher education, training, and workforce development to approximately 13 million students annually. Community colleges educate 44% of the nation’s undergraduates, including the largest proportions of minority and first-generation college students.
Community colleges have a major role in helping the U.S. return to world leadership in higher education attainment and have dedicated themselves to producing 50% more students with high quality degrees and certificates by 2020. They also are essential to lasting economic prosperity. The following federal programs can help make these goals a reality.
Federal Pell Grants
Pell Grants are the largest and most important federal higher education program, providing essential access to higher education for low-income students. These need-based grants now serve nearly 9 million students annually, the vast majority of whom come from families with very modest incomes. Each year, approximately 35% of Pell Grant funds go to more than 3 million community college students, enabling them to pay for tuition, books, and living expenses. The exploding number of Pell Grant recipients during the current economic downturn has both underscored the need for this program and placed it under financial stress. Congress must preserve the recent gains made in this program.
Community College and Career Training Program
Funded for $500 million for each of fiscal years 2011 – 2014, the Community College and Career Training Program is a new, temporary source of federal support for community colleges that will help them build education and training programs for dislocated workers and many others who require additional higher education to secure and maintain self-sustaining wages. This program is part of the Trade Adjustment Assistance Act and will focus on reform and innovation as it helps expand the capacity of community colleges to train the nation’s workforce.
Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act
The Perkins Act is one of the largest sources of federal institutional support for community colleges, helping them to improve all aspects of cutting-edge career and technical education (CTE) programs. The Perkins Basic State Grants give postsecondary institutions the flexibility to identify local priorities and to fund innovation in occupational education programs. Community colleges use these grants for a variety of purposes, including training first responders and public safety officers; helping students meet challenging academic, vocational, and technical standards; purchasing equipment; and fostering better links between colleges and the business community.
Strengthening Institutions Program
The Strengthening Institutions program (Title III-A of the Higher Education Act) provides critical support for colleges that have few resources and serve high proportions of low-income and historically underrepresented populations. Given the rising enrollments of low-income students, this competitive grant program is more important than ever to community colleges, which comprise a substantial majority of the grant recipients.
Career Pathways Innovation Fund
The Career Pathways Innovation Fund (formerly the Community-Based Job Training Grants program), a Department of Labor grant program funded at $125 million for the last six years, expands the capacity of community colleges to train workers for jobs in high-demand, high-growth industries. It has brought together community colleges, local businesses, and the federal workforce investment system to prepare workers in the health care, energy, advanced manufacturing, technology and other critical industries. In light of the funding to be provided through the Community College and Career Training Program (CCCTP), this program faces elimination. However, it is complementary to that program and will continue beyond it, and therefore should be preserved.
Other Important Funding Priorities
Community colleges strongly support the Hispanic-Serving Institutions, Predominantly Black Institutions (PBIs), Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institutions, Adult Basic and Literacy Education State Grants, Child Care Access Means Parents in School Program (CCAMPIS), and the TRIO and GEAR UP programs. Several Higher Education Opportunity Act programs, including those that promote sustainability, encourage articulation agreements between higher education institutions, promote college persistence, assist veterans, and help students in rural communities, also serve important purposes.
Workforce Investment Act (WIA)
The Workforce Investment Act governs the federal workforce development system administered by the Department of Labor and the adult education program administered by the Department of Education. Both are vital to community colleges. WIA’s reauthorization has been pending since 2004 and needs to be completed as soon as possible to make needed improvements. WIA should prioritize the role of community colleges in delivering training services, authorize the Career Pathways Innovation Fund as proposed by the President, and deliver support for adult basic education that emphasizes bridges to postsecondary education and training.
Tax Incentives for Higher Education
Community colleges strongly support the consolidation, streamlining, and retargeting of federal higher education tax benefits to the neediest students. The American Opportunity Tax Credit (AOTC), which was included in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, is far more beneficial for community college students than the Hope Scholarship tax credit that it temporarily replaced, and should be made permanent.