Long ignored in terms of clout and financial support, community colleges received a healthy dose of national exposure last year with a high-profile summit at the White House and the approval of a $2-billion career-training program.
But the political dynamics have changed here, and two-year institutions are worried that the momentum they have been able to build in the first half of President Obama’s term might not last through the next two years.
The Obama administration is working to keep attention on two-year colleges, which enroll nearly half of all undergraduates and which the president has seen as being key to meeting his ambitious college-completion goals for the country. At the close of last fall’s summit, officials announced that a virtual community-college summit would take place this year to continue the conversation about how two-year colleges can improve, helping the United States to lead the world by 2020 in the proportion of residents holding college credentials, as the president wants. Four regional summits are also expected to be held on community-college campuses.
But political power in Congress has shifted toward Republicans, and it is unclear how community colleges will fare under the once-again divided federal government. Republican leaders, in control of the House of Representatives, have vowed to significantly cut domestic spending. Because they are unlikely to trim budgets for the military, domestic security, and programs for veterans, the federal presence in areas like education and transportation is vulnerable.
Community-college officials worry that money for the Pell Grant program, which three million community-college students rely on annually, could be reduced, or that funds could be siphoned from the $2-billion career-training program approved last year. That grant program was created last March, but the release of details about how the money will be allocated has been delayed for months. Those details are now scheduled to be unveiled on Thursday of this week.
In some ways, though, community colleges could find the political shift advantageous. Republicans may be more apt than their Democratic counterparts to move forward on the long-stalled Workforce Investment Act, which authorizes billions of federal dollars for education and job-training programs, including at community colleges. For the most part, two-year colleges haven’t served as primary providers of those programs, because grant money has more often been used to help people find jobs rather than train them for new ones. The college leaders see an opportunity to strengthen their role when the law is finally renewed.
On another front, Republicans may seek to block or overturn some of the Education Department’s new rules for reining in abuses among for-profit colleges, rules that also have ramifications for community colleges. The most controversial of those proposals, known as the “gainful employment” rule, would cut off federal student aid to programs whose graduates carry high debt relative to income and have low loan-repayment rates. The rule applies to almost all for-profit college programs and to certificate programs at community colleges and other nonprofit institutions. Community-college officials, who prefer that the rule be eliminated, worry about the staff hours it might take to fulfill the reporting requirements. The proposed rule has not yet been made final.
Policy experts say community-college leaders’ main concern this year may be staying relevant in the political conversation after receiving so much attention in the first two years of the Obama administration. Higher-education issues in general are expected to take a back seat to K-12 policy during this Congress, as legislators gear up to renew the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, known as No Child Left Behind under President George W. Bush.
“The pressure that the Obama administration is facing now is jobs, jobs, and jobs,” says Louis Soares, director of the Postsecondary Education Program at the Center for American Progress, a public-policy research-and-advocacy organization. “As the administration continues to figure out how to create jobs, the community-college sector should concentrate on how they can live in that space. It’s about how institutions can leverage their programs to adapt to a changing labor market.”
Waiting for the Money
The most disappointing moment for two-year colleges last year was watching President Obama’s American Graduation Initiative, which involved $12-billion to help them improve and contribute toward his goal of five million more community-college graduates by 2020, shrink into the $2-billion grant program.
Some community-college leaders have been concerned that even this grant program could be vulnerable to cuts in a Republican-controlled House focused on slashing spending. Republicans have called for discretionary spending to revert to 2008 levels.
The grant money is designed to be awarded to two-year colleges on a competitive basis, with each state receiving at least $2.5-million in each year of the four-year program. Many colleges are eager to apply for the grants, which would allow them to expand or restructure job-training programs and create more. The programs would be aimed at workers eligible for federal Trade Adjustment Assistance: people who have lost their jobs, or whose wages or hours have been cut, as a result of increased imports.
For months community colleges have waited to hear about the specific grant-application guidelines from the Department of Labor. Without the guidelines, the money cannot go out to colleges, and until it does, advocates of the grants worry that the program could be a target for cuts.
“There was such potential a year ago for funding through the American Graduation Initiative, but since then it’s been an ongoing dwindling,” says Mary Anne B. Cox, assistant chancellor of Connecticut’s community and technical colleges. “A pattern of reduction has been set, and that makes us very nervous.”
For months, she says, her 12-campus system has been discussing ways it could use the grant money. Among the priorities would be to use the money to improve the system’s allied-health and nursing programs. Those programs are widely popular, and their graduates bolster the local economy by filling open jobs.
Because funds for the community-college grant program have already been appropriated, policy experts say that it is unlikely that Congress would reopen the debate and cut the money. Republicans have “bigger fish to fry,” including renewal of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, than siphoning money away from community colleges, Mr. Soares says. And with Democrats in control of the Senate, lawmakers there also could fight any cuts that House Republicans propose.
New Players
As community-college officials navigate the new circumstances in Washington, they will be working with new committee leaders and without some of their old allies. Both co-chairs of the community-college caucus in Congress, Sen. Blanche Lincoln, a Democrat from Arkansas, and Rep. Michael N. Castle, a Republican from Delaware, lost in last year’s elections.
Among the new leaders, Republicans overseeing House panels on higher-education policy have made it clear that colleges will not necessarily be shielded from spending cuts.
Rep. Virginia Foxx, a Republican from North Carolina who now leads the higher-education subcommittee, said in an e-mail that “America is drowning in debt.”
“While education is an important issue to me and most Americans,” she continued, “we have a responsibility to make sure that we get the best return on the taxpayer dollars we steward.”
Statements like that have supporters of the Pell Grant program worried. Community colleges serve a higher percentage of low-income students than do other sectors of nonprofit higher education. If Pell Grants diminish, so would the number of community-college students who are from minority groups or who are the first in their families to attend college, says David S. Baime, senior vice president for government relations at the American Association of Community Colleges.
Because Pell Grants received increases last year, with Congress raising the maximum award and closing a shortfall in the program, Mr. Baime says that many members of the 112th Congress may view it as an easy place to cut.
At the same time, community-college leaders may find Republicans helpful when it comes to staving off the Education Department proposals that would put new burdens on some two-year programs.
Rep. John Kline, a Republican from Minnesota and new chairman of the House education committee, said in an e-mail that the rule was “harmful” and would result in limiting students’ higher-education options. A better way to ensure programs’ integrity, he said, would be to provide consumers with as much information as possible about costs and outcomes.
He said he planned to join other members of Congress to “explore whatever steps can be taken to prevent these harmful proposals from taking effect.”
The new legislative session brings fresh possibilities for community colleges to remain at the forefront of policy discussions, particularly with the probable renewal of the Workforce Investment Act.
The Obama administration’s eagerness to shore up the nation’s fragile economy by creating new jobs gives community colleges an opening to make a strong case for the renewal. Two-year colleges could significantly improve their career- and technical-training programs if they could obtain more federal work-force-training money and play a greater role in programs the legislation authorizes.
Mr. Baime is hopeful that the reshuffling in Congress will lead to a renewed emphasis on reauthorizing the legislation. “This is a huge priority for our colleges,” he says.