USA: Biden plans free community colleges
As a part of the American Families Plan, presidents Biden announced on Wednesday investment in higher education by funding free community colleges.
The question of free tuition at public two-year colleges has been asked more frequently during the pandemic. As the country enters the recovery, unemployed workers without college education face challenges finding jobs. Community colleges provide a diverse population of students with an affordable way to gain education or qualification that will open the door to job opportunities.
The first lady, Jill Biden, is a teacher herself and a professor at Northern Virginia Community College. She has been supporting the idea to make community colleges free and together with President Obama at the time, she was part of the introduction of College promise, an initiative to make education affordable.
The President of the American Council on Education (ACE), Ted Mitchell said the plan is seen as revolutionary in higher education financing and will provide the opportunity for low- and middle-income Americans to pursue higher education at two- and four-year colleges and universities.
The core of the higher education programme is two years of free community college, with a budget of $109 billion to support it. The funding would go to support up to two years of tuition subsidies for families that qualify, to expand capacity in high-demand fields at these schools and to train and teach skilled health care workers.
A separate grant programme with a $62 billion budget would provide funding to colleges for adopting innovative solutions for student success, including wraparound services such as childcare and mental health services; emergency basic needs grants; practices that recruit and retain diverse faculty; transfer agreements between colleges; and evidence-based remediation programs.
As Mitchell pointed out, a lot of the work remains to be done to turn these ideas into operational programs. The financing of community colleges will be challenged due to varied financial systems across the states.
The requested plan would also increase the maximum Pell grant that is a student support grant for low- and moderate-income students to use to pay for tuition, fees, books, room and board with an approximate increase by $1,400, on top of a $400 increase in the administration’s proposed 2022 budget.
The American Families Plan aims to invest in families, children, and our economic future through various educational and economical support to improve and provide relief to American families and communities.
