- Government shutdown drags on, students may lose SNAP benefits if funding is not restored
- AACC responds to Department of Education grant priority around career pathways and readiness
- AACC offers comments on proposed changes to the E-App
Government shutdown drags on, students may lose SNAP benefits if funding is not restored
The full federal government shutdown has reached day 23 with no end in sight. Despite several votes on a short-term funding extension, the Senate has not been able to agree to a deal or make any significant leap forward in its negotiations.
As a reminder, Senate Democrats view this shutdown as their leverage to secure extensions to expiring Affordable Care Act (ACA) health care subsidies, to reverse some of the cuts made to Medicaid in the One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB) reconciliation legislation, and to enact more control over the White House’s use of appropriated funds. Senate Republicans and the White House still want to see a “clean” Continuing Resolution (CR) – i.e. with no policy changes – to reopen the government. Democrats won’t reopen the government without a deal; Republicans won’t negotiate with the government closed. If the government is closed through November 1, it will be the longest government shutdown in American history.
While administration of federal financial aid is continuing as usual, students who participate in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) may lose access to this aid on November 1. During the government shutdown, the federal government is no longer sending states checks to cover SNAP benefit costs and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has sent notices to states telling them to suspend distributing benefits until funding is restored. SNAP benefits are currently funded entirely by the federal government, with states and the federal government splitting costs associated with program administration [Note: this cost share will change when the provisions of the “One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB)” go into effect]. SNAP benefits are distributed on a monthly basis, with most states beginning to transfer benefits to participants’ Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) accounts early in the month. While some states may try to divert resources from other state programs to provide some SNAP benefits, it will be impossible to find the $8 billion that states receive each month from the federal government to cover all SNAP enrollees.
AACC is closely monitoring the full government shutdown and its impact on community colleges and our students. We will continue to provide updates and urge members to contact the AACC Office of Government Relations (ogr@aacc.nche.edu) to share how the shutdown is impacting your campus community.
AACC responds to Department of Education grant priority around career pathways and readiness
This week, the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) provided comments on the proposed new priority for Department of Education (ED) grant programs: Expanding Career Pathways and Workforce Readiness.
Each administration sets its own priorities for the awarding of competitive grants at federal agencies, called “Supplemental Priorities.” Earlier this year, Education Secretary Linda McMahon announced an initial set of supplemental priorities, including promoting evidence-based literacy, education choice, and returning education to the states. In September, the Secretary proposed an additional priority around expanding career pathways and workforce readiness.
As providers of workforce education, AACC has a strong interest in ensuring that this grant priority is thoughtfully leveraged to drive effective investments in workforce education and development. To that end, AACC’s comments applaud the proposed priority’s emphasis on supporting early awareness of workforce pathways through secondary and postsecondary-level activities, aligning workforce development programs at the state and federal level, improving timely workforce data, and increasing the number of registered apprentices.
Finally, AACC’s comments urge the Department to thoughtfully apply this priority to discretionary grant programs that are best positioned and designed to promote workforce education and stronger career pathways, including national-level grants made within the Perkins Career and Technical Education program and Adult Basic Education programs.
AACC offers comments on proposed changes to the E-App
Also this week, AACC submitted comments on the Department of Education’s (ED) proposed changes to the Application for Approval to Participate in Federal Student Aid Programs (E-App).
Community colleges have repeatedly communicated to ED that program participation agreements, recertification, and program review procedures are extremely burdensome and need to be improved. Currently, these processes are time-consuming, often duplicative, and require enormous amounts of back-and-forth with Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA) officials.
AACC’s comments thank the Department for their interest in decreasing administrative burden on institutions, reducing needed clarifications and interactions with agency officials, and expediating approvals through revisions to the E-App. AACC thanked ED for the proposed changes to automatically accept applications that contain simple updates, rather than subjecting each updated application to a manual review, and to significantly scale back the number of college officials who are required to provide personal contact information.
AACC offered feedback on a new proposed process for gaining approval to participate in individual Title IV programs and urged ED to maintain a way for colleges to voluntarily opt-out of participating in certain Title IV programs (including the Federal Direct Loan Program, TEACH Grants, and Federal Work-Study), regardless of whether the institution is eligible to participate. AACC’s comments also asked the Department to consider allowing institutions to submit updates, revisions, and corrections while an application is under review. Currently, institutions must wait until a review is completed to make these changes, significantly delaying the approval process.