By Andrea Fuller

Washington

Community-college presidents say they are pleased that legislation passed by the U.S. House of Representatives on Sunday includes $2-billion for their colleges but are disappointed that number is significantly lower than what they originally had expected Congress to provide and much less than what President Obama had proposed for two-year institutions last year.

The House bill, HR 4872, which would overhaul the nation's health-care system and end the bank-based distribution of federal student loans, now heads to the Senate, which is expected to vote on the measure this week.

The House passed a similar student-loan bill last September, and that bill included $10-billion for community colleges. But spending for higher education included in that original bill was scaled back after the Congressional Budget Office revised the projected savings from the student-loan overhaul from $87-billion to $61-billion this month.

Gail O. Mellow, president of LaGuardia Community College, part of the City University of New York, said she was disappointed with the final numbers. "It was a missed opportunity to make an enormous difference in the lives of almost half of all undergraduates in the United States," she said.

The $2-billion is also much less than the $12-billion President Obama had proposed to spend to improve programs, courses, and facilities at two-year institutions in his high-profile announcement last July of a plan to bolster community colleges. In a speech at Macomb Community College, he called on the nation's community colleges to produce five million more graduates by 2020.

Nevertheless, community-college presidents emphasized that they were happy to receive any money at all in the final version of the student-loan legislation. Right up until the release late last week of the House bill's text, rumors had swirled that funds for community colleges would be cut entirely.

"This is the very first time that the federal government is providing direct aid to community colleges," said Eduardo J. Martí, president of Queensborough Community College, also part of the City University of New York. "So even though $2-billion is one-sixth of what we were hoping for, it's really welcome."

Changing Focus

The $2-billion dedicated to community colleges in the new bill will go toward job training, a different emphasis from the grants for two-year institutions in the previous legislation. Colleges would have had more flexibility to use the $10-billion in the bill that passed in September, as that money would have financed broader efforts by the institutions to meet the president's goal of graduating five million more students by 2020.

Jack Scott, chancellor of California Community Colleges, said the new grants are "very important at a time when there's high unemployment and need for retraining." Mr. Scott said he expects California colleges to expand their career technical programs, which often require expensive equipment.

Other college presidents said they were disappointed by the narrowed focus of the federal spending. Mr. Martí said more needs to be done to improve low completion rates for community-college students. Just under 30 percent of those students graduate within three years, according to federal data.

"I understand why the emphasis is placed on training because jobs are extremely important now," he said. "It is my hope that somehow we can revive at least some of the emphasis on the long view with programs in the future."

Mr. Martí said that his college has sought to improve its retention and graduation rates in part by improving student-support services. The college has added "freshman coordinators" who provide support services and introduced a course on college life. He said the college had planned to apply for federal grants that would have been available under the previous bill to expand the college's support services to part-time students.

Susan Huard, dean of learning and student development at Quinebaug Valley Community College, said her institution had also hoped to secure grants from the $10-billion pot of money to allow the college to hire more support staff and improve programs to provide mentors for students.

Under the new bill, Ms. Huard said her college, in Connecticut, would apply for money to enhance its career laddering programs, which educate students about how to transition from entry-level positions to more-advanced jobs. But she said she was worried about how the overall decrease in grants available to community colleges would affect small institutions. Ms. Huard said she worried that Quinebaug, which has just over 2,000 students, might not prevail as it competes with much larger schools for part of a much smaller pool of money

"I think our chances have been diminished," she said.

Disappointment Over Facilities

A number of college presidents also said they were disappointed they would no longer get federal money to renovate facilities, as would have been provided by the previous legislation. Many community colleges are running out of space to meet growing student demand, particularly as more people turn to two-year institutions for retraining in a down economy.

Ms. Mellow said LaGuardia had hoped to renovate an old factory building, adding computer labs and classrooms. G. Dennis Massey, president of Pitt Community College, had hoped for money to construct a classroom building and a science building.

"We were very much looking forward to the potential for assistance with facilities growth," Mr. Massey said. "We're the most crowded of all 58 colleges in North Carolina."

Carolane Williams, president at Baltimore City Community College, had hoped to apply for money to renovate a vacant building in a low-income neighborhood to serve as a new location for offering workforce-development programs. With the changes in the types of federal money available, Ms. Williams said the college would now seek grants to support its program that focuses on solving problems in the work-force pipeline by expanding programs in fields where there are worker shortages, such as allied health.

The program is "focused on critical shortage areas in Maryland, so that we can move students into some of those high-priority work-force programs," she said. "The money included in these grants is going to be helpful with that."

Optimistic About the Future

Though college presidents were disappointed about the new bill setting aside $8-billion less for community colleges than did the first bill, they were optimistic that money allocated for the Pell Grant program would help their institutions. The legislation includes $36-billion for Pell Grants, including money to automatically increase the maximum award each year by the rate of inflation.

"Preservation of Pell Grants is the absolute priority," Ms. Huard said. "Sixty percent of my student body is on a Pell Grant. While we need to keep looking for resources to develop additional programming, Pell Grants are absolutely fundamental to our student success."

College presidents said they were hopeful that the $2-billion allocation in direct funds would open the door to more direct federal spending on community colleges in the future.

College presidents who have been working for many months to urge Congress to pass legislation to finance the president's community-college plan "can't stop that effort, Ms. Mellow said. "This was a down payment."

But advocates of more federal support for two-year institutions acknowledge that the student-loan legislation now moving through Congress was their main chance to get that money, and that there isn't likely to be another opportunity for a while.

David S. Baime, vice president for government relations at the American Association of Community Colleges, said that community colleges would need more resources if they hoped to meet the president's goal of producing five million more graduates. But he was uncertain when or how that money could be approved.

"There's no immediate prospect for funding of the scale" of what the president had proposed for his community-college graduation plan, he said.