August 5, 2026
I am grateful for the AACC Board of Directors, who are in Washington, DC, this week, engaging with our staff and hearing about the progress being made towards the association’s goals. Board members play an essential role in carrying messages about your colleges’ needs and aspirations, and I encourage you to communicate with the AACC board regularly.
As you know, U.S. Education Secretary McMahon has asked all U.S. colleges and universities to respond publicly to a series of directed questions. By the nature of the queries, the communication appears aimed at research universities, and I have reached out to the Department of Education to confirm their intention. Should member colleges choose to respond, I sent a communication to membership yesterday that may help guide your potential responses.
On the legislative front, the Senate HELP committee has approved the College Transparency Act (CTA), a longstanding AACC priority. The CTA would create a comprehensive postsecondary data system that would ultimately reduce institutional burden and dramatically increase the tracking of postsecondary employment earnings.
Congratulations to Iowa Central College, which is the first in the nation to get receive federal approval of a Workforce Pell program. Clearly the administration is invested in this first step since Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon and Acting Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling joined Iowa Central Community College President Jesse Ulrich for the announcement yesterday at ICC.
For anyone who missed last week’s webinar, “AACC Policy Update: Latest Developments in Workforce Pell,” the recording is now available.
Long-time AACC supporter All Within my Hands announced the expansion of its national workforce program, the Metallica Scholars Initiative (MSI), to more than 90 colleges. With $3.3 million committed and 18 new community colleges added, MSI continues to support a cadre of robust career and technical education programs in the U.S. MSI has already served 13,000 community colleges students nationwide over eight years and is strengthening workforce pipelines while powering local economies. Congratulations to the participants.
As we all work to integrate artificial intelligence (AI) into our work lives and predict its impact on the labor market, I will point you to recent sources of analysis. Dr. Justin Heck, a senior researcher at Opportunity@Work, provided an insightful look at the labor market impact during a Senate Housing Education on Labor and Pensions (HELP) hearing last week on “The Impact of AI on the Workforce.” Dr. Heck’s analysis was aligned with some of the nuanced analysis that I heard last week at a high-level Partnership on AI workshop, hosted in Washington, DC,