On the same day that several top Republican lawmakers trekked to a Virginia community college to tout the proposed SKILLS Act as the solution to a “broken” federal workforce development system, a pair of national higher education leaders informed Congress that the bill has several downsides for community colleges.
“While the legislation has several positive aspects we also have significant concerns with the bill,” Walter Bumphus, President and CEO of the American Association of Community Colleges, and J. Noah Brown, President and CEO of the Association of Community College Trustees, wrote in a letter obtained by Diverse.
Bumphus and Brown sent the letter Thursday to the U.S. House of Representatives in response to House Resolution 803, the proposed Supporting Knowledge and Investing in Lifelong Skills Act, or SKILLS Act for short.
A chief concern expressed in the letter is that in reorganizing the structure of state and local Workforce Investment Boards, or WIBs, the SKILLS Act—which seeks to amend the Workforce Investment Act—would make community colleges “optional members” of the WIBs.
“As leading providers of occupational training, adult basic education, postsecondary education and other key services for (Workforce Investment Act) participants, we believe that community college WIB representation is vital to the system’s success and should be required in statute,” the letter states. “We appreciate the notion of streamlining the boards’ memberships; however under the terms of (the SKILLS Act) it is possible to have boards with no representation from community colleges.”
The letter also criticizes the bill for deemphasizing the needs of the poor.
“We are concerned that assistance currently targeted to those with the most economic need and other unique characteristics will be diminished under the structure set out in H.R. 803, especially given the legislation’s removal of overall priority for low-income individuals,” the letter states.
