Workforce Pell Is Live. How’s It Going for States?

For months, administrators at Ivy Tech Community College have been feverishly working with Indiana state officials to parse which of their programs might be eligible for Workforce Pell. The policy took effect July 1, and they are eager to start the flow of new federal dollars to low-income students in short-term training programs.

After weeding out existing programs that didn’t meet the federal requirements—some were too short; others hadn’t existed for a year or more—they settled on one program to advance to the U.S. Department of Education for approval: a certified clinical medical assistant program. The move is part of Indiana’s pilot approach to the first year of Workforce Pell. The state is prioritizing programs at Ivy Tech and Vincennes University in five key industries: advanced manufacturing, building and construction, health and life sciences, IT and business services, and transportation and logistics.

“We want to be one of the first Workforce Pell programs in the country,” said Colby Shank, the college’s vice president for financial aid and student accounts. He’s hopeful Pell dollars might be available to students in the CCMA program as early as this fall, depending on ED’s review process. But the college plans to wait and see how this year goes before proposing additional programs. Indiana is “taking the approach of being slow and deliberate with our rollout of Workforce Pell, because we want it to be successful.”

Like Ivy Tech, college and state leaders across the country have been gearing up for Workforce Pell since the long-anticipated policy passed as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act last year. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that Congress will invest over $1 billion in the program over the next 10 years and that by 2034, about 100,000 new recipients each year will receive Workforce Pell Grants of about $2,200 each.

The Trump administration’s speedy timeline for implementation, and a negotiated rule-making process that extended into the spring, spurred a race to the finish line as states sought to stand up approval processes for programs ahead of July. While at least 20 states have done so, many are still building up the data infrastructure they need to evaluate programs and hashing out the details of their review processes. Experts say this is just the beginning of the work for states and colleges as they sort through which of their existing programs meet federal and state guidelines.

To qualify for Workforce Pell, programs need to have existed for at least a year and run between eight and 14 weeks and between 150 and 599 instruction hours. They also need to clear some quality checks, including completion and job-placement rates of at least 70 percent and a tuition threshold. The cost of a program can’t surpass graduates’ median “value-added earnings,” or the degree to which their income exceeds 150 percent of the federal poverty line three years out of the program. States, meanwhile, are tasked with determining whether programs align with high-skill, high-wage or in-demand jobs before programs can get the Department of Education’s seal of approval.

Many states “have taken the approach of trying to view this as a soft start,” said Michelle Van Noy, director of the Education and Employment Research Center at Rutgers University. “People are focusing right now on trying to figure out how to best take advantage of this opportunity and implement it well to help workers and employers and regional economies.”

50 States, 50 Different Plans?

Just a month into the policy, states are pursuing many different strategies to access the new funding.

Several states launched application processes with modest lists of in-demand jobs. Florida, for example, approved 31 types of programs eligible for Workforce Pell. By contrast, Colorado came out with a list of over 430 occupations for institutions to choose from, from funeral home management to forestry.

At least a few states have already approved small numbers of programs for ED to consider, while others have yet to establish an application process at all. Out of 40 programs submitted by 11 institutions, Pennsylvania approved two, a commercial driver’s license program at Douglas Educational Center and a truck-driving program at Rosedale Technical College. Iowa unanimously approved nine programs at the state’s community colleges, according to the Iowa Department of Education.

States that came out ahead in the process tended to have mechanisms already in place to collect data on short-term programs, Van Noy said. They were better prepared to test whether programs met federal criteria, like the 70 percent completion and job-placement requirements.

Indiana, for example, has the Workforce Ready Grant, which covers tuition for some certificate programs and requires similar data reporting to Workforce Pell, making the process a lighter lift. Others are building or updating their data infrastructure. The Colorado Community College System is working on a more robust student longitudinal data system “to make us better poised for the years to come to report out on what we’ll need to … in a more streamlined manner,” said Keith Richard, the system’s vice chancellor for workforce solutions and innovation.

“We knew that there was going to be a good amount of variation in terms of how easily states and institutions were going to be able to implement,” Van Noy said. “The states run the full gamut in terms of their ability to determine whether programs are eligible and how quickly they were able to do that.”

Wesley Whistle, project director for student success and affordability at the think tank New America, said he’s concerned by some of the variation in how states are going about implementation. He worries not all states are maintaining the highest standards for these programs.

For example, West Virginia’s legislation on its plans for Workforce Pell defines high-wage occupations as paying “above 150 percent of the Federal Poverty Level,” which Whistle described as “laughable.” Workforce Pell programs are also supposed to count toward academic credit for a certificate or degree program, and states don’t necessarily have processes in place to check, he said.

But he’s hopeful that as states review their methodology over the years, they’ll make changes.

“Maybe they were just doing the bare minimum because of the time constraint and the rush that they felt they were in,” he said. Later on, he hopes some will “think harder on it and be more rigorous and set a higher bar.”

Molly Dodge, Ivy Tech’s senior vice president for workforce and careers, emphasized that states are figuring out how to use a “new tool,” and that takes time.

“States are continually learning from one another and sharing best practices,” she said. “We’re trying to go slow so we can go fast, but this is an opportunity that all states want to get right.”

Small Numbers—for Now

As states roll out their review processes, some colleges have found that fewer of their programs qualify for Workforce Pell than they expected. Many of their current programs fall short of one or more of the requirements, contributing to the policy’s slow ramp-up.

For example, many of Ivy Tech’s workforce programs weren’t structured in ways that fit Workforce Pell’s parameters. Its certified nursing assistant program, for example, was too short to meet eligibility standards, and the college’s commercial driver’s license program outsources a quarter of its truck-driving training to third parties, disqualifying it as well.

Randall Stamper, associate vice chancellor for career education and workforce programs at the Virginia Community College System, said the system has an abundance of short-term training options through the state’s FastForward and G3 programs, which offer financial support for workforce programs. But out of about 600 credit and noncredit programs, only six qualified for Workforce Pell. Many programs fall between four and eight weeks or between 80 and 120 instruction hours, just short of Workforce Pell’s standards. Some also don’t meet the 70 percent completion and job-placement rate requirements.

Virginia colleges could retool or lengthen programs to meet the federal criteria, but Stamper has some qualms about taking that approach.

“If 80 hours get you commercial driver’s license in four or six weeks, do we really want to add a bunch of hours and weeks to your responsibility as a student before you can get to work just to access the federal funds?” he said. “Right now, we are reluctant to do that.”

He also pointed out that these students would have to fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, potentially sending tens of thousands of additional students to community college financial aid offices for support.

System leaders are thinking carefully about the costs of changing programs, hiring financial aid staff and asking students to fill out a FAFSA if a prorated portion of Pell doesn’t pay for their entire program, he added. “If we can find sweet spots” where Workforce Pell proves useful to the state, “we’re going to do it for sure.” But because Virginia already has state support for short-term programs, colleges have the “luxury to not feel rushed to submit a whole bunch of programs” before doing that cost-benefit analysis.

Whistle believes it’s a good sign that only a small number of programs seem to qualify for Workforce Pell so far, because it means lower-quality programs are likely being weeded out by federal standards. He also doesn’t want to see colleges adding “nonsense” to their programs just to meet the length requirements unless extra coursework would improve programs.

Colleges can tweak their programs, but it has to be done “in a thoughtful way,” Whistle said. If a program is too short, “are there things you can add to the program that are meaningful for students that that will actually help them get a job?”

Van Noy also believes it’s too early to know how the numbers will shake out after colleges have time to review and, if need be, tweak their programs.

“I don’t think what we’re seeing right now is really a good measure or a good indicator of where this is all going to land. I think there will be more programs,” Van Noy said. “The big open question is how many new programs will there be after a more full implementation process has had the time to play out?”