What Now? What A Biden Administration May Mean for Community Colleges.

The 1,100 community colleges, including Pennsylvania’s 15 community colleges, are hopeful that with two long-time community college champions in the White House, community colleges will gain a more prominent role in the higher education sector. More importantly, we believe we will receive the funding needed to ensure we remain accessible, affordable, equitable and provide our communities with the relevant workforce training and education programs to help them remain competitive locally, regionally, nationally and internationally.

I believe that even though the president-elect will have a lot of life-and-death issues to address upon assuming his role in mid-January 2021, ensuring Americans have the skills needed for current and future jobs will be near the top of his agenda if we are going to turn the economy around. To that end, community colleges are well positioned to address workforce training activities, as HACC has done successfully for years. However, even though we may have to wait for the new administration to get some community college-related programs introduced, debated and approved by Congress, there is currently a stimulus bill being debated and waiting to be voted on this year or early next year that may provide two to three times more money than we realized from the CARES Act.

Ten initiatives I believe the new administration may focus their efforts on include some of the following:

1. Reinstating the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. As President-Elect Biden tweeted on Election Day, “Dreamers are Americans – and it’s time we make it official.”

2. Investing billions in workforce development

3. Giving students accused of sexual assault more due-process rights in investigations (Title IX)

4. Providing enhanced wrap-around programs and services, including low-income students, students of color and veterans

5. Making public colleges and universities tuition-free for students from families with annual incomes below $125,000

6. Doubling the maximum Pell grant

7. Offering $10,000 of undergraduate or graduate student debt relief for every year of national or community service, up to five years

8. Providing free tuition at community colleges or at least making them more affordable

9. Reforming developmental education efforts

10. Focusing on increasing the graduation and completion rates of community college students

Even though it will take months and possibly years to determine what can get done to realize these initiatives, I remain hopeful and will work closely with our Congressional delegation to ensure our students’ voices are heard and valued when debating funding priorities.