We Just Expanded the Definition of College

What Is Workforce Pell and Why Will It Reform College?

I am not here to raise a glass to the “big, beautiful bill” that passed last week. I’ve heard enough “OK, Boomer” finger wagging from my own kids to dread any new legislation that saddles the next generation with the weight of a silent, crippling deficit. I hear pundits in my head exclaiming that: “this bill is only big and beautiful in that it’s the biggest transfer of wealth ever to the already ultra-rich.”

However.

Tucked away in this sprawling new mega-law is actually a sensible bipartisan nugget that begins the work I recommend in my book. It expands the definition of college.

The problem has been that low-income students are only eligible for federal Pell grants if they are enrolled in credit bearing courses, which tend to be those that are part of academic degree programs. (Roughly 1/3 of all college students receive Pell Grants based on family income; they can get up to nearly $7,000 per year.)

The “credit-bearing” rule leaves out most of the students who want to take a short-term program through a college to boost their earnings power. Those were not considered worthy of college credit or federal financial aid. Just one example: roughly 75% of the “micro-pathways” community colleges are creating to help students train quickly for high demand, high wage jobs are not eligible for Pell Grants. (See my blog on micro-pathways.)

Funding rules crafted in the 1960s have propped up the traditional degree model, and pushed lower income students onto degree paths on the well-intentioned theory that we know what’s best for you: degrees pay off. But that’s only if you finish. And low-income students are significantly less likely to finish their degrees, because life gets in the way.

So, if you were driven off to university since the 60s in the family station wagon, now SUV, and dropped off for four years to figure out what or who you might become, the federal government has likely supported you through student loans and/or Pell Grants.

But, if you are, say, a low-income single mom, who heard about an eight week program at your local community college to become an IT or cybersecurity technician, you’ll likely be on your own to pay for it.

That’s about to change. And well done, Congress.

Versions of this new Workforce Pell plan were buffeted over the waves of the past several Congressional cycles, always said to have bipartisan support, but never passing. So, this is a milestone.

The details on which programs are eligible are still being worked out. The plan goes into effect one year from now, in time for the 2026-27 school year. The college and workforce communities are buzzing with how to make this work effectively.

I was pleased to see that programs will be required to be “stackable and portable” to qualify, meaning that the learner can see how a series of short-term programs can add up to a degree, but they can break their learning journey into parts, as short as 8 weeks, each ending with a meaningful credential or set of skills designed for a job role. Portable means that when you go back to school, your first part of the journey counts toward a degree, no matter where you earned it.

Example of a stackable pathway in behaviorial health. Courtesy of Education Design Lab

So, why does this tuition funding change matter when only one-third of all college students qualify for it and the support amounts they’ll likely receive to cover short term programs will be small, as low as $1000, maybe less?

Because… I believe this one change to federal tuition funding will hasten the move toward the stepladder approach for many colleges. New funding models have a way of driving innovation into a space. We’ve seen it in the K-12 arena with charter schools and school voucher programs. And community colleges won’t have to engage in the gymnastics to piece together funding to cover the costs of delivering these trainings from other workforce programs. They will also be incented to, for the first time, track outcomes for short term programs.

The challenge will be that programs have to demonstrate that they improve the salaries for graduates compared to if the learner had gone straight to work after high school. In fact, all college programs will need to start demonstrating this, which means some colleges will lose their language and English departments. And frankly, that provision will do more to “vocationalize” higher education overall than any broadening of Pell Grant eligibility.

The Education Design Lab, where I chair the board, has been working for 5 years to help colleges build their data capacity for what is unaffectionately labeled “non-credit” learning, but we were starting from zero. The early data is very encouraging, showing that short term micro-pathways designed with employers are boosting earnings power for learners. Are the learners continuing their studies from their new jobs and stacking that training to degrees? We don’t have that data yet. I hope so, but in a stepladder world, the degree might always not be the point. (Except in fields where licensing requires it, like nursing or teaching.)

Broadly, I’m somewhat hopeful because the vision I have been touting around the country this winter and spring on my book tour needs funding innovation to spring it loose. I’ve been complaining that yesteryear’s funding model incentivizes colleges to issue full degrees and to ignore what the market is asking for more loudly every year. Short term certificate enrollment is up 28% since 2019, while degree enrollment has declined before, during COVID, and is pretty flat currently. As I say in my book, the stepladder approach requires colleges to be talent brokers, managing a tapestry of learning and doing experiences, but there needs to be funding to incent a new integrated model.

“In a new world, [colleges] could become the master contractors, sharing their tuition funding with other groups that provide and assess skill building, employers, and non-profits. If the colleges are going to continue to be the ones that the government will trust to disburse financial aid, then they hold the keys to the new ecosystem of providers working together effectively.”

Chapter 7, The Great College Reset

I’m not suggesting that the tuition dollars newly unlocked by short term Pell will fund an ecosystem that might fix the broken school to work talent pipeline, but it is a start and a recognition that the silos are breaking down. Congress gets it. Colleges get it. Employers are starting to get it. High schools certainly get it, they opened up funding to pay for higher schoolers to take college classes and that model has become wildly popular. I celebrate that we see the need to build buying power for a wider range of credentials, and it will take a village. And I celebrate that community colleges have a new opening to serve as talent brokers.

For more on the other changes to higher education from the new legislation, see Inside Higher Ed’s account.

JFF, a leading workforce intermediary, has published a useful primer on expected criteria for Workforce Pell.