The House passed the budget reconciliation bill, officially named “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” which will accomplish many of President Trump’s campaign legislative promises in tandem. It includes a key provision for which community colleges have long advocated – Workforce Pell. However, the bill also reduces Pell Grant eligibility in ways that will do more harm than good. ACCT’s top priorities for the final reconciliation bill are preventing changes to Pell eligibility, particularly the “half-time” enrollment requirement, and the inclusion of Workforce Pell.
The One Big Beautiful Bill includes the Student Success and Taxpayer Savings Act, which alone saves $349 billion in spending. The Pell eligibility changes are approximately $7.8 billion or 2.2% of savings resulting from the Student Success and Taxpayer Savings Act. These changes include requiring students to take 9 credits (3 courses) to be eligible for any Pell grant dollars (half-time requirement) and for full-time students to increase to a 15 credit per semester course load (full-time requirement).
Community college students – average age 27 and 82% working while enrolled – are the most likely to be balancing studying, earning, and family responsibilities, making attendance at 15 credits per semester nearly impossible. Yet, staying at their current enrollment thresholds would mean they’d get fewer dollars per credit and be more likely to borrow or have to increase the number of hours worked if this plan passes into law.
For students who are currently part-time, the calculus is even harsher. This “half-time” requirement could result in at least 400,000 community college students losing access to any Pell grant dollars at all. Community colleges could see long-fought-for enrollment growth plummet. The harm caused is an unacceptable tradeoff for the small amount of savings contributed – less than $700 million – with an “m.” That’s 0.2 percent. The amount of a budget rounding error – one that could upend plans for hundreds of thousands of students nationwide.
The skilled-labor workforce that our nation needs to be expanding will be the student segment most harmed by these changes. And while the Workforce Pell does provide a new set of opportunities, they are different options than those currently covered under part-time enrollment. Students attending part-time are usually pursuing careers that require an associate degree or year-long certification/certificate, but they are unable to take a heavier course load due to work and family obligations. Whereas students in shorter workforce programs are usually adult learners who are looking to quickly retool and get back into the workforce as quickly as possible. It is crucial to both individual students and the regional economies that community colleges support that both options of Pell Grant support be available to these differing groups of community college students.
There are additional concerns to making these changes as well. The number of Second Chance Pell sites that would be able to operate would decrease as many are not able or allowed to enroll a student in 3 courses simultaneously. The benefit of the year-round Pell program will be diminished with the change to full-time enrollment. States and localities that have a tuition-free “promise” program would see an increase in their budgetary obligations to fill in the gap left by reduced or lost Pell access. And the most concerning domino effect consequence is that students who lose Pell status will also lose access to any state, institutional, or private aid and scholarships that require Pell eligibility.
The bill is titled “Student Success” but the changes to the Pell grant included in the bill will lead to anything but.
The Pell grant program was designed to be one of access. That has always been the goal. It is an investment worth making to bring more individuals into family supporting jobs, which contributes to society as a whole through lower public benefit receipts, higher tax receipts, and a healthier and engaged population. Cutting these students out of the Pell grant program not only harms the individual students and the institutions where they enroll but also hurts their families and communities when they are unable to better their own circumstances.
Carrie Warick-Smith is the Vice President for Public Policy at ACCT
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